For value, I will always dig thru the USDA choice pile before looking at the prime.

You can almost always find a gem or two.

How does that happen?

Inspectors themselves can’t see much of the meat itself and grade with varying degrees of accuracy.

Butchers often don’t discriminate.

In a bigger store they might even label prime meat as choice in order to have inventory on the shelf.

These were under $10/lb.