CS2 Skin Quality Guide
Two different things get called "quality" — this untangles them
CS2 skin quality is two independent axes. Wear condition (Factory New → Battle-Scarred) is rolled per item from a hidden float value. Rarity grade (Consumer Grade → Covert, plus Extraordinary for knives and gloves) is fixed per finish and shown by the colour bar. They are set independently, so a Covert can be Battle-Scarred and a Consumer Grade can be Factory New.
Ask what "quality" means on a CS2 skin and you will get two different answers depending on who you ask. Someone selling an inventory means the wear condition. Someone opening cases means the rarity grade. They are unrelated systems that happen to share a word, and mixing them up is why so many first inventories look confusing.
This page covers both axes and how they interact. If you specifically want the float mechanics — how the number is generated, how it drives trade-up outputs, why the boundary values matter so much — that is the job of our dedicated CS2 float value guide.
Axis one: wear condition
Every skin instance in CS2 carries a float value between 0 and 1. It is fixed at the moment the item is created and never changes afterwards — playing with a skin does not wear it down. The five condition names you see on the item are just labels for fixed bands of that range:
| Condition | Short | Float band | What you actually see |
|---|---|---|---|
| Factory New | FN | 0.00 – 0.07 | The finish as designed, with essentially no scuffing. |
| Minimal Wear | MW | 0.07 – 0.15 | Light scratching, usually invisible at gameplay distance. |
| Field-Tested | FT | 0.15 – 0.38 | Visible wear on edges and raised surfaces. The widest band. |
| Well-Worn | WW | 0.38 – 0.45 | Heavy scuffing and noticeable colour loss. The narrowest band. |
| Battle-Scarred | BS | 0.45 – 1.00 | Substantial paint loss and exposed base material. |
The bands are not evenly sized, which matters more than it first appears. Field-Tested covers nearly a quarter of the float range on its own while Well-Worn covers a narrow slice, so a randomly generated skin lands in Field-Tested far more often than in Well-Worn. That is a property of the bands, not of any individual case.
Each band's lower bound is inclusive and its upper bound is not. A float of exactly 0.15 is Field-Tested rather than Minimal Wear — you can see this in the game data, where a finish whose minimum float is exactly 0.15 is listed as starting at Field-Tested with no Minimal Wear version at all.
Float ranges are per-skin, not universal
The five bands are the same for every skin, but the slice of them a given finish can occupy is not. Each finish has its own minimum and maximum float baked into the game files, and no instance of that skin can ever fall outside the window. This is why some conditions simply do not exist on the market for some skins — not because they are rare, but because they are impossible.
| Finish | Float window | Conditions that can exist |
|---|---|---|
| AK-47 | Case Hardened | 0.00 – 1.00 | All five |
| AK-47 | Redline | 0.10 – 0.70 | MW through BS — never Factory New |
| AWP | Asiimov | 0.18 – 1.00 | FT, WW and BS only |
| M4A4 | Howl | 0.00 – 0.40 | FN through WW — never Battle-Scarred |
| AWP | Lightning Strike | 0.00 – 0.08 | Factory New and Minimal Wear only |
Full-range finishes are the exception rather than the rule: as of July 2026 only around a fifth of CS2 finishes span the complete 0.00 to 1.00 window. Before you go hunting for a Factory New version of something, it is worth checking the window exists — you can pull the exact float on any listed item with our float checker, and browse finishes in the skin database.
A practical consequence: the wear label tells you less than people assume. A Field-Tested skin from a finish capped at 0.38 sits at the worn end of its own possible range, while a Field-Tested skin from a 0.18-minimum finish may be near the best that finish can ever look. Compare like for like.
Axis two: rarity grade
Rarity is a fixed property of the finish itself. It never varies between two copies of the same skin, it is not rolled, and it does not change with condition. It is what the coloured bar under the item is telling you, and it governs how likely the finish is to appear when it can drop.
| Grade | Applies to |
|---|---|
| Consumer Grade | Weapon finishes |
| Industrial Grade | Weapon finishes |
| Mil-Spec Grade | Weapon finishes |
| Restricted | Weapon finishes |
| Classified | Weapon finishes |
| Covert | Weapon finishes — the top weapon grade |
| Extraordinary | Knives and gloves, marked with a star |
| Contraband | Withdrawn from production — the M4A4 | Howl is the only one |
Knives and gloves sit outside the weapon ladder entirely. Internally they use a distinct rarity entry that displays as Extraordinary rather than Covert, which is why they are usually described as a separate tier rather than the top of the same one.
Contraband is the odd one out — it is not a drop tier you can pull. It marks a finish that was pulled from production, and exactly one item carries it.
How the two axes interact
Three things follow from them being independent, and all three trip people up:
- Rarity does not imply condition. Opening a Covert is a rarity event. The float is rolled separately, so the same pull can arrive Battle-Scarred. Nothing about the colour bar promises a clean finish.
- Condition does not imply value across finishes. Factory New is only meaningful relative to the same skin. A Factory New Consumer Grade and a Factory New Covert have nothing in common beyond the label.
- Neither axis is upgradeable in place. You cannot improve a skin's float or promote its rarity. Trade-up contracts create a new item at a higher grade, with its own float derived from the inputs — the mechanics of that are in the float guide.
There is a third axis worth knowing about too: StatTrak and Souvenir. Both are modifiers layered on top of a finish, and both are independent of condition and rarity. A StatTrak Covert can be Battle-Scarred; a Souvenir Mil-Spec can be Factory New.
What quality actually means for how a skin looks
Two finishes at identical floats can look completely different, because wear is applied to the artwork rather than being a uniform filter. Finishes built on solid light colours show scuffing immediately; dark and busy patterns hide it. That is why the standard advice to "always buy Factory New" is wasteful for some skins and essential for others.
Condition also has nothing to do with the other visual variable people care about: the pattern seed. Two Factory New copies of the same finish can look very different if the finish is pattern-sensitive, and that is a separate lookup entirely — see the pattern database for the finishes where seed dominates.
If you are picking items to hold rather than to use, condition scarcity within a finish is one of the inputs worth reading about in our skins investing guide. This page deliberately does not quote figures — condition premiums move, and a number written today ages badly.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What are the CS2 skin quality levels?
- Quality in CS2 means two independent things. The wear condition — Factory New, Minimal Wear, Field-Tested, Well-Worn or Battle-Scarred — is set by the float value rolled for that individual item. The rarity grade — Consumer Grade through Covert, plus the Extraordinary tier for knives and gloves — is fixed per finish and shown by the colour bar. A Battle-Scarred Covert and a Factory New Consumer Grade are both possible.
- How does float value map to a wear condition?
- Every skin carries a float between 0 and 1, and the five conditions occupy fixed bands of that range: Factory New up to 0.07, Minimal Wear to 0.15, Field-Tested to 0.38, Well-Worn to 0.45, and Battle-Scarred above that. Each band has an inclusive lower bound — a float of exactly 0.15 counts as Field-Tested, not Minimal Wear.
- Can every CS2 skin exist in every condition?
- No. Each finish has its own minimum and maximum float defined in the game files, and only the bands inside that window can ever be produced. The AWP Asiimov spans roughly 0.18 to 1.00, so it only exists Field-Tested and worse. The AWP Lightning Strike caps out around 0.08, so it only exists Factory New and Minimal Wear. Only around one finish in five covers the full 0.00 to 1.00 range.
- Is rarity the same as condition?
- No, and conflating them is the most common mistake. Rarity is a fixed property of the finish that determines its drop odds and its colour bar. Condition is rolled per item when it drops. Improving the condition of a skin does not change its rarity, and a high rarity does not guarantee a good float.
- Does condition or rarity affect gameplay?
- Neither does. Wear only changes the texture — scratches, scuffing and paint fade — and rarity only affects how likely the finish is to appear. There is no accuracy, damage or hitbox difference between any two versions of a weapon.
- Are StatTrak and Souvenir quality levels?
- They are a third, separate axis. StatTrak adds a kill counter and Souvenir adds tournament stickers and a gold name, and either can sit on top of any condition the finish supports. They do not change the rarity grade or the float.