CS2 skin glossary

Float value

Every skin carries a wear value between 0 and 1, set when the item is made and never changing afterwards. Lower is cleaner. The number shows even within one exterior: a 0.15 Field-Tested looks close to Minimal Wear while a 0.37 looks close to Well-Worn, so floats near the clean end of a bracket often sell for more. Item pages lay prices out on the real float scale with the wear rail, and recent sales show the float of every item sold.

See AK-47 | Redline.

Exterior

The wear name shown in game and on the market, read straight off the float. Each exterior trades as its own item with its own price.

Float range

Each finish can only roll floats inside its own range. One that starts at 0.10, like the AK-47 | Redline, has no Factory New version, and one that stops at 0.08, like a Doppler knife, only exists as Factory New and Minimal Wear. Item pages list the range and show which exteriors exist.

See ★ Karambit | Doppler.

Pattern (paint seed)

A paint seed from 0 to 1000 decides where the finish's texture sits on the weapon. On most skins it barely matters. On a few it sets the price: how much blue a Case Hardened shows, how much of the gradient a Fade keeps, where the webs fall on a Crimson Web, or whether a Marble Fade lands the red and blue Fire and Ice look. Recent sales on item pages show the pattern of every item sold.

See AK-47 | Case Hardened and ★ Karambit | Fade.

Doppler phases

Doppler and Gamma Doppler finishes come in phases, each a distinct finish that the Steam market lists under one name: Phase 1 to Phase 4, plus the rarer Ruby, Sapphire and Black Pearl for Doppler and Emerald for Gamma Doppler. Prices differ widely between them, so CS Armoury prices each phase on its own wherever a marketplace tells them apart.

See ★ Karambit | Doppler.

Stickers and charms

Stickers applied to a weapon stay on it when it's traded and can be scraped, which wears them down until they come off. Rare ones, early Major stickers above all, can add more to a weapon's price than the skin itself. Charms hang from the weapon. Recent sales list the stickers on every item sold, linked to their own pages.

See stickers and charms.

StatTrak™

A counter that records kills made with the weapon, or MVP awards for a music kit. StatTrak™ versions drop from weapon cases one time in ten and trade as separate items, usually above the plain version.

See case odds.

Souvenir

Souvenir items come from the souvenir packages of a Major, with that tournament's stickers already applied. They can't be StatTrak™, and some, from the earliest Majors especially, trade far above the plain version.

See Majors and souvenir packages.

Rarity

Every item has a grade, shown by its colour. Weapon finishes run from Consumer Grade through Industrial Grade, Mil-Spec, Restricted and Classified to Covert, and Contraband marks the M4A4 | Howl and the Howling Dawn sticker, which no longer drop. Knives and gloves, marked ★, are the rare special items in cases. Stickers, patches and charms use High Grade, Remarkable, Exotic and Extraordinary, and agents use Distinguished, Exceptional, Superior and Master.

• Consumer Grade
• Industrial Grade
• Mil-Spec
• Restricted
• Classified
• Covert
• Contraband

See M4A4 | Howl.

Case odds

Weapon cases need a key to open. Valve publishes the odds: a Mil-Spec skin 79.92% of the time, Restricted 15.98%, Classified 3.20%, Covert 0.64% and a knife or gloves 0.26%, so each weapon grade is five times rarer than the one below. Case ROI works out what an opening returns on average at today's prices.

See Case ROI and every case.

Trade-up contract

Ten skins of one grade go in and one skin of the next grade comes out, drawn from the collections of the skins you put in, so the mix of collections sets the odds. The result's float is worked out from the floats of the inputs. Five Covert skins can also be traded up for a knife or gloves from their case. Inputs must be all StatTrak™ or all plain and the result matches them; Souvenir items can't be used.

See the trade-up calculator.

Lowest ask and buy order

The lowest ask is the cheapest listing you can buy right now. A buy order, or bid, is the highest price someone has offered, so it's roughly what you'd get by selling instantly. The gap between the two is the spread, and a wide one points to a thinly traded item.

See liquidity and spread.

Reference price

CS Armoury's estimate of what an item is worth: the median of the lowest asks on the main cash marketplaces that agree with each other, which keeps placeholder listings on thinly traded items from skewing it. Steam and trade bots are left out.

See how it's calculated.

Liquidity

How easily an item sells. The liquidity score runs from 0 to 100 and blends daily sales, active listings and the number of marketplaces carrying the item. Liquid items sell quickly near their price; illiquid ones can take a discount to move.

See the methodology.

Marketplace fees

Marketplaces take a cut of each sale, and some charge buyers as well. Steam keeps 15% and pays sellers in wallet funds that can't be withdrawn, which is why Steam prices sit above cash marketplaces. Every price table on CS Armoury shows what a seller nets after fees.

See marketplaces and Steam balance ratios.

Peer-to-peer markets and trade bots

Peer-to-peer marketplaces match players who buy and sell with each other. Trade bots sell from their own stock at prices that include their margin, so CS Armoury shows them but leaves them out of the reference price.

See marketplaces.

Inspect link

A steam:// link that opens an item in CS2 so you can see its exact float, pattern and stickers before you buy. Recent sales on item pages include one for each item sold wherever the marketplace provides it.