Blog / floats, patterns, trades
Blog
How floats, patterns and phases change a price, and how a skin actually gets from checkout to your inventory. Written for buyers.
Inspect links: what they are and how to use them
Where an inspect link lives, what happens when you click it, what a float checker reads from it, and why a screenshot is never proof of what you are buying.
Set up the Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator before you buy
How to add the Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator, why you should do it a week before you order a skin, what a trade hold does to a delivery and where to check your status.
Where skins come from: cases, collections and drops
Case skins, map collection skins and weekly drops: how each one enters the game, why retired collections get scarce, and how to tell which kind you are looking at.
Rarity tiers from Consumer Grade to Contraband
The seven rarity tiers, what the color under a skin means for drop odds and price, how trade-ups climb the ladder, and why Contraband holds only one skin.
Souvenir skins: how they drop and why some cost a fortune
Where Souvenir packages come from, what the gold stickers mean, why Souvenir items cannot be StatTrak or traded up, and why a Souvenir Dragon Lore is its own market.
StatTrak explained: what the counter does and what it is worth
How the StatTrak kill counter works, what resets it, why it always starts at zero after a trade, and how much of a premium the orange module really adds by weapon type.