Everything You Need to Know about CS:GO Skin Wear

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Making a popular game with an advanced trade system is a challenge in itself, but to make it long-lived and create a rotation of items that encourages people to engage and spend money on the same game over and over is artistry. Skins became the buzzword for CSGO and some people enjoy their collectible aspect as much as playing the game itself.

Skins are a type of reward for playing CSGO frequently. You have a small chance to drop either a bare weapon skin or a skin case when you finish an official server match or when you level up. Those too haughty for delayed gratification can refer to the market and buy skins from other players.

Skins are a subject to CSGO wear rating levels, which influence both their looks and their value on the market. Plunge right in to learn everything you need to know about it.

What is this “wear”?

Wear level is a stat that influences the condition of a given skin. It is expressed with a float value, which goes from 0.0, meaning perfect, to 1.0, meaning totally worn down. When a skin is dropped or taken from a case, the game randomly ascribes it a float value. It has a direct influence on the look of the skin. Usually, the higher the float, the less visible and saturated the painting or decal is. Some of the skins simulate other ways of degrading. For example, Sawed-Off | Copper gains more patina with higher floats, which lead to it being more popular and demanded in maximally worn version.

It obviously influences the market prices of skins. Generally, the higher the CSGO wear levels are, the lower the prices, but it’s not a law. Some wore-down skins reach higher values if the community considers them more attractive than the unsullied ones.

What are the different wear levels?

Below you’ll find a complete list of tiers for levels of wear in csgo. We’ll look at each of them in terms of float, visuals, and prices.

Factory New (FN)

The highest possible level, representing the purest form of the skin design. Float value for those ranges between 0.00-0.07. In case of rare items, they can reach enormous prices. Usual market values oscillate around a couple of hundreds of euro in case of Covert skins. However, there are some minimal float maniacs, who are dealing with items of micronomic float, like 0.00002, where prices get too abstract to mention.

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Minimal Wear (MW) 

Slightly more degraded level, which with some skins is barely visible. Their float value is ascribed between 0.07 and 0.15. It’s not hard to guess that there are more of those on the market and while cheaper than FN, they might be easier to find with a good offer.

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Field-Tested (FT)

Here, the damage to the skin usually starts to show more, with scratches, desaturations and so on. FT skins range in float between 0.15 and 0.37. While they usually have a lesser market value, together with MW skins they make up for the most lucrative trades, as the balance between skin quality and market volume hits a golden middle with certain skins of these two levels.

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Well-Worn (WW)

On this level, you start finding the underdogs of the skin world. Their float starts at 0.37 and goes up to 0.44. Some skins look terrible at this tier, while others are barely worse than higher levels. You can find both darn cheap and moderately affordable skins in this category.

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Battle-Scarred (BS)

While the most rugged of all skins, these make up for a majority of drops and don’t necessarily mean worthless or useless skins. Their float is everything between 0.44 and 1.0. Although they are the cheapest of all, it does not mean you cannot find something worthwhile with that level. Covert and Classified skins with this float can still cost a nice sum.

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Beyond the grid

While float attribute for different wear levels is set, it does not mean all of them will always be available for each weapon. You might get some weapons without Factory New version, or without Battle-Scarred version. There are some skins like UMP-45 | Grand Prix, where the only wear level it will ever drop with is Field-Tested, or like XM1014 | VariCamo Blue, where Battle-Scarred float goes only up to 0.5.

Checking your skin’s float

If you want to see on what wear level your skin is, it’s enough to go to your Steam inventory. CSGO skin wear levels are always displayed in the description of the item, but only by the tier name. If you want to know the exact float stat, you will have to refer to third-party pages.

General market prices for wear levels are given at services like CSGO Stash, where you can easily see the average price of a skin depending on wear level and whether it is a StatTrak skin or not. There are also a couple of other third-party sites that will allow you a safe deposit of your skins and calculate their float with the accuracy of several decimal places.

Skin wear is unavoidable

Float values on skins are fixed. You can neither improve it nor destroy it with usage. The float is determined when it drops and it’s a random statistic that no one has an influence on. Unlike weapon stickers, which you can scratch to look less fresh, CSGO levels of wear stay the same forever. If you wish to acquire the same skin with a smaller float, you need to trade it in and pay the difference with either money or other skins.

Final verdict

There are several, hierarchical levels of wear CSGO uses to grade its skins. However, you cannot treat them linearly in terms of visual quality and their market value, as it depends both on item rarity and purely subjective aesthetic impressions. Compare the skins you drop with those available in Steam Market and third-party sites to determine their practical value, and don’t be afraid to fool around with high-float skins.

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