CS2 Skin Rarity Tiers Explained

Weapon skin rarities

CS2 weapon skins are graded by colour, from most common to rarest: Consumer Grade (white), Industrial Grade (light blue), Mil-Spec (blue), Restricted (purple), Classified (pink), Covert (red), and Contraband (orange).

Inside a weapon case, the rarity tiers map directly to the drop odds: Mil-Spec is the most common pull and each step up is dramatically rarer, which - combined with demand - is the main driver of price.

Knives & gloves - the gold tier

Knives and gloves use the gold 'Extraordinary' (★) tier and sit outside the normal colour ladder. In a weapon case they're the 'rare special' drop at roughly 0.26% per opening, split across that case's knife/glove pool - so any specific knife is far rarer than that.

Because they're the rarest case drops and the most coveted cosmetics, knives and gloves are the most expensive category in the game, routinely worth hundreds to thousands of dollars.

StatTrak™ and Souvenir variants

Most skins also exist as StatTrak™ versions, which add a kill counter and usually carry a price premium over the normal version. StatTrak™ is rolled separately when unboxing (roughly a 1-in-10 chance versus the normal skin).

Souvenir skins drop only during official tournaments via Souvenir Packages and come with that match's team/player stickers and gold name text. Depending on the stickers and event, a Souvenir can be worth far more - or sometimes less - than the normal skin. A skin is never both StatTrak™ and Souvenir.

Contraband - a tier of one

Contraband (orange) is a unique status for the M4A4 | Howl, whose original artwork was pulled for a copyright issue and discontinued. No new Howls enter the economy, which makes it a special collector's item rather than a normal rarity tier you'll find in cases.

Does higher rarity mean a higher price?

Usually, but not always. Rarity sets the supply, but price is also driven by demand, float, pattern (paint seed), and applied stickers. A wildly popular Classified can outsell an unpopular Covert, and a clean low-float or rare-pattern copy can be worth a multiple of an ordinary one in the same tier.

Treat rarity as one ingredient in value, not the whole recipe - always check the live cross-market price for the exact variant you want.

FAQ