Float Values Explained: Why Two Identical Skins Sell for Wildly Different Prices
Fyrconthius Lazenquill 
Two listings, same skin, same condition label, and one costs three times the other. The seller is not confused and the cheaper one is not a scam. The difference is the float value, and it is the single most misunderstood number in CS2.
What a Float Value Is
Every skin instance is generated with a wear value between 0 and 1. Zero is pristine. One is destroyed. This number is fixed at the moment the item is created and never changes.
The condition name you see — Factory New, Minimal Wear, Field-Tested, Well-Worn, Battle-Scarred — is just a band that value falls into. It is a label applied to a range, not a property of the item.
The Five Bands
Factory New covers 0.00 to 0.07. Minimal Wear runs to 0.15. Field-Tested to 0.38. Well-Worn to 0.45. Battle-Scarred takes everything above that.
Look at the widths. Factory New spans seven hundredths. Field-Tested spans twenty-three. A Field-Tested skin at 0.16 and another at 0.37 carry the same label and look nothing alike.
This is where the price gaps come from. The market prices the number; the interface only shows the band.
Why Low Floats Cost More
Two reasons, and only one is about appearance.
The visible one is straightforward: less wear means a cleaner texture, and on skins where wear obscures the artwork the difference is obvious even at a glance.
The collector reason is scarcity. Float generation is not uniform across the range, and extremely low values are genuinely rare. A skin at 0.0001 may be visually indistinguishable from one at 0.01, but there are far fewer of them, and a section of the market pays for that alone.
Float Caps Change Everything
Not every skin can reach every condition. Individual finishes have their own minimum and maximum float, set by Valve when the skin is created.
Some skins cannot go below 0.10, which means Factory New copies do not exist and Minimal Wear is the best available. Others cannot exceed 0.50, so Battle-Scarred examples are impossible.
When a skin has a restricted range, the best obtainable condition carries a premium far beyond what the raw number suggests, because the supply of anything cleaner is zero rather than merely small.
Where the Money Actually Concentrates
Float premiums are largest at the edges. A 0.00x Factory New and a near-maximum Battle-Scarred both command attention, the first for cleanliness and the second because extreme floats are collected in their own right.
The middle of a band is where the value is. If you are buying to use rather than to collect, a high Factory New or a low Minimal Wear usually looks near-identical to the expensive copies at a fraction of the cost.
How to Check Before You Buy
Steam does not display float in the listing. You need the inspect link and a third-party checker, both of which take about ten seconds to use.
Check it every time on anything above pocket money, because the number is invisible in the interface and sellers have no obligation to mention it. This applies equally to items acquired through unboxing, trading or third-party formats like CS Case Battles — however a skin reaches your inventory, its float was fixed at creation and determines a large share of what it is worth.
One last point that saves arguments. Float cannot be changed. There is no cleaning mechanic, no repair, no way to improve a worn skin. Anyone offering one is lying to you.
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