The Most Expensive CS:GO Skins Ever Sold

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When it comes to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive skins are an inseparable part of its culture since the Arms Deal update in 2013. However, for some, skins are a business. One with a lot of money in it. Today we will talk about the most expensive CSGO skin ever. Please, put on your seat belts and prepare to be amazed.

Most Expensive CSGO Skin Ever – In Depth

Whenever the talk about the most expensive skin in CSGO starts there are a few names that always appear: AWP | Dragon Lore, M4A4 | Howl or AK-47 | Case Hardened. However, the question is, what makes these items so expensive? After all, they are only a collection of pixels on the virtual weapon. On top of that, skins don’t have any actual impact on weapon stats. Still, people like to have unique things. In a nutshell, creating the most expensive CSGO skin isn’t that hard. Make a skin very elusive and exclusive prize, add some interesting and unique backstory to it and cut the supply really short. Congratulations! You’ve just created a new most expensive skin in CSGO! Jokes aside, in this article we will take a look some very interesting cases of very expensive skins and try to make ends meet.

StatTrak M4A4 | Howl

Black and red, fiery, furious and beastly. This absolutely unique skin is one of the most expensive CSGO skins. After an art theft it was removed from the cases and can’t be dropped anymore. However, the small amount that was already in the players’ inventories suddenly rose in price. M4A4 | Howl is now obtainable only through trading. Currently, there is one listing of the M4A4 | Howl (Factory New) at a whopping $1700 with StatTrak version being calculated to reach almost $3000. That’s a lot of money!

StatTrak Bayonet | Crimson Web

This crimson bayonet decorated with a spider web pattern is one of the most exclusive and rare items you can ever get. Although Field-Tested isn’t so rare and goes for around $150, Factory New version wasn’t seen for a long time. It is estimated it would easily reach $2500. And the StatTrak version? No one really knows. Now, the thing that makes it go into this compilation as a pretender to the title of CSGO most expensive skin is the fact that an M9 Bayonet Crimson Web was sold for $23,850 in the April 2014! It may be not the most expensive skin right now, but the sheer money in this one transaction for one item is astonishing. When it comes to StatTrak Bayonet | Crimson Web, there were only two ever encased in the whole history, therefore such a skin evaluated at around $30,000.

AK-47 | Case Hardened

A real grandpa among the CSGO weapon skins, AK-47 | Case Hardened was a part of the first-ever CSGO Weapon Case that came with The Arms Deal Collection. It’s blue, gold and silver hues change a lot depending on the float of each given skin. Even though it is not the most expensive skin priced around $75 for a Factory New version, Case Hardened skins came in many patterns with different amount of blue hues. Suddenly, the bluer the more expensive your skin got. It got to a point at which an anonymous buyer from China bought a #1 pattern with float equal to 1 for $25,000.

Souvenir AWP | Dragon Lore from Boston 2018 Major

A Dragon Lore! When you google CSGO Skin most expensive this is what you get. Now, the normal AWP | Dragon Lore (Factory New) is worth around $1500. However, there was one that was sold for a lot more in January 2018. Of course, we are talking about Souvenir AWP | Dragon Lore with a unique set of stickers – PGL, G2 Esports, Cloud9 and Skadoodle who was a Boston Major 2018 MVP who played in the Cloud9, team which won the tournament. This skin, being one of its kind was sold for over $61,000. That’s a cabin in the Canadian woods, a new sports car or your college tuition!

How did it become so expensive?

Every one of the skins mentioned above has a story behind them. The Souvenir AWP | Dragon Lore was made so expensive through the stickers applied. AK-47 | Case Hardened and Bayonet | Crimson Web are so special because of their sheer rarity. However, in case of Howl, the story is especially interesting.

In 2014 CSGO Market was on the rise. Through Steam workshop many artists could upload their own skins looking for fame and money. The most popular skins were added to the game and the artist was given a portion of the value of all transactions, making it a very lucrative option. Two of such artists, Auzzii and sic, have uploaded a skin for M4A4 and a sticker called the howling dawn that was supposed to be inspired by the artist’s dog. In a very short time, M4A4 | Howl got 4500 upvotes and become popular enough to be introduced into Huntsman Collection and added as a drop from Huntsman Case. The M4A4 | Howl received a Covert rarity and everyone was happy: Artist got their money, players got their skin and Valve had a satisfied customer base. Everyone, except CanisAlbus, the original artist behind the imagery used in Howl’s design who was informed about the fraudulent use of his artwork. After filing a DMCA takedown notice, Valve removed Howl from the cases and the skin got an original redesign by Valve team to avoid plagiarism. However, even though the M4A4 | Howl disappeared from the case, it still remained in the player’s inventories. Suddenly, M4A4 | Howl that was already in the inventories got a limited Contraband rarity and became the most expensive CSGO skin overnight shooting straight from $17 to ~$180.

Are people buying those skins?

In short, yes. People do buy such expensive skins, but they are an investment and not just a skin trade. After all, CSGO skins work a bit like cryptocurrency. The community of people that can afford to buy skins over $1000 isn’t big and doesn’t like publicity, so many huge deals aren’t discussed in the news. Moreover, there are probably other items that only hardcore skin traders and investors know about and understand their true value. Due to this, it is hard to say what is the most expensive CSGO skin sold in the history of CSGO skin trading.

Should you get it?

It depends on a few factors. First, and arguably the most important, is your wallet. If you have a couple grand laying around you may want to consider investing into CSGO skins. Moreover, think about your intentions. Do you just want to have something unique in-game? Or are you thinking about skins in terms of investment taking into consideration possible price shifts? If you just want to play the game with some very unique items, it might be a bad idea. For one, a lot of scammers will target you immediately. Moreover, remember that uniqueness and price of a skin won’t translate to player skills and if you don’t have the skills to back up your expensive buy, you may be a target of jokes. Another food for thought is that most hardcore skin traders very rarely play CSGO themselves. If they do, they aren’t very likely to use their expensive skins. In the end, it is your money and you will do what you want with it.

Summary

In this article, we discussed the topic of CSGO most expensive skin, talked about some of the contenders for this title and dived a bit into hardcore CSGO skin traders world. Whatever you choose to do with this knowledge, we wish you all the best fortune.

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