The M4A4 | Howl is the only weapon skin in CS2 with the Contraband rarity. It is not the rarest skin in the game by count, and it is not the most detailed. It is expensive because of a story that played out in 2014 and because of one consequence of that story: no new Howl can ever be made.
Where it came from
The Howl shipped in the Huntsman Weapon Case as one of its two Covert skins, alongside the AK-47 | Vulcan. The artwork was a snarling wolf in orange and red over a black body, submitted through the Steam Workshop like most case skins of that time.
The artwork dispute
Soon after the case went live, an artist recognized the wolf. The image had been copied from their own work without permission, and they filed a copyright complaint. The same turned out to be true of a sticker from the same period, Howling Dawn, whose artwork had also been taken from another artist.
Valve acted on the complaint. The Howl was removed from the Huntsman Weapon Case and the Howling Dawn sticker from its drop source, and neither has been obtainable from any source since.
The rework
Valve did not delete the existing Howls. Instead, its own artists redrew the skin with a new wolf, and every copy already in circulation was updated to the new artwork. The original art is not in the game anywhere. If you own a Howl today, it is the reworked version, whatever anyone tells you.
At the same time Valve created a rarity tier that had not existed before, Contraband, and moved the Howl and the Howling Dawn sticker into it. Contraband sits above Covert and has its own color in the client. The tier exists so that an item with no legitimate drop source has somewhere to live in the rarity ladder.
Why supply is frozen
Every other skin in the game has a source that keeps making copies. Cases keep dropping. Collections keep dropping. Trade-up contracts turn ten Classified skins into a Covert. The Howl has none of those.
- It is not in any case.
- It is not in any map collection or operation drop.
- It cannot come out of a trade-up contract, because the contract ladder stops at Covert and Contraband sits above it.
- There is no Souvenir version, and StatTrak copies exist only from the short window when the case still contained the skin.
So the number of Howls in existence can only fall. Accounts get banned and their items are locked. Accounts get abandoned. Items are occasionally deleted. Nothing replaces them.
What a Howl looks like
The reworked wolf is a stylized head in orange over a dark body, with flame shapes along the receiver and handguard. The float range runs from 0.00 to 0.40. That means every Howl is Factory New, Minimal Wear, Field-Tested or, at the very top of the range, Well-Worn. There is no Battle-Scarred Howl. Wear shows as scuffing on the orange and dulling of the wolf, mostly at the edges of the receiver and along the handguard.
The pattern index does not change the look. Two Howls at the same float are the same skin. Stickers are the exception: a number of Howls carry old tournament stickers, and those crafts trade as separate items with their own prices.
How the price behaves
Because supply cannot respond, the price is a demand story only.
| Factor | Effect |
|---|---|
| Wear rating and float | Factory New sits well above Field-Tested, and low floats within a band add a premium, as with any rifle |
| StatTrak | StatTrak copies are rarer than normal ones and price above them |
| Stickers | Old tournament stickers can add a large premium. Random stickers add little |
| The wider market | The Howl rises and falls with the whole skin market, but with few copies for sale, so listings are thin and the gaps between asks are wide |
| Time | Copies keep leaving circulation and none arrive |
Two things follow for a buyer. First, the spread between the cheapest listing and the next one can be wide, because there are not many sellers at any moment. Second, the Howl is unusually sensitive to trust. With no new copies and a market this small, inspect data matters more here than on almost anything else.
Before you buy one
- Confirm the float from the inspect data and compare it with the 0.00 to 0.40 range. A Factory New at the very bottom is a different item from one near 0.07.
- Check for stickers and their wear. On a Howl the stickers can be worth a large share of the price.
- Check for StatTrak in the name, since it is a separate market.
- Make sure the account you are buying for can trade, so the Steam trade offer completes. Until you accept the offer the sale can be refunded in full. After you accept, it is final.
The Howl is expensive because it cannot be made again, not because it is rare to see. Judge a copy by its float and its stickers, and remember that every Howl is the reworked one.
On PrefireSkins every lot shows its exterior and, where the inspect data gives it, the exact float, with prices in EUR. Delivery is a Steam trade offer to the trade URL you give at checkout.
