Exterior Brackets Explained: Factory New to Battle-Scarred

Exterior is the label CS2 puts on a skin’s condition. It is derived entirely from the float value, and it is the first thing most buyers read. The catch is that the five brackets are wildly different in width, so the label tells you far less than it appears to.

Factory New — 0.00 to 0.07

The narrowest bracket and the most expensive. Paint is intact, edges are sharp, and on skins with fine detail the artwork is fully readable. On a skin whose float range is capped low, Factory New copies can be common. On a skin that rolls the full range, they are the top 7% of all rolls and priced accordingly.

Worth it for bright, flat, detailed finishes. Less obviously worth it for dark skins where the difference from Minimal Wear is hard to see at arm’s length.

Minimal Wear — 0.07 to 0.15

The value bracket. Light scuffing on edges, artwork still clean, and typically a noticeable discount from Factory New. For most skins and most buyers this is the sweet spot: it looks close to new in the first-person view where you actually see the weapon, and it costs meaningfully less.

Field-Tested — 0.15 to 0.38

The widest bracket by far and the one that rewards paying attention. A 0.16 Field-Tested is visually a Minimal Wear that missed the cutoff. A 0.37 is nearly Well-Worn. The same label, the same price bracket on most markets, and a very different weapon in your hands.

If you buy Field-Tested — and there are excellent reasons to — buy by float, not by label. This is where the catalogue’s float filter earns its keep.

Well-Worn — 0.38 to 0.45

Another narrow band, and an awkward one. Fading is obvious, bare metal shows on edges, and on skins with light colours the artwork starts to break up. On some skins it looks deliberately weathered and rather good. On others it just looks broken.

Well-Worn is worth checking case by case rather than dismissing. On dark, busy patterns the visual penalty is small and the discount is large.

Battle-Scarred — 0.45 to 1.00

Over half the float range packed into one label. A 0.46 Battle-Scarred and a 0.95 are barely the same item. Heavy scarring, washed-out colour, and on some skins a distinctive look that people actively want — certain Case Hardened and Doppler patterns are prized in Battle-Scarred because the blue or purple sections survive while everything around them fades.

It is the cheapest way into an expensive skin, and on the right weapon it is not a compromise at all.

The practical rule

Use the exterior to narrow the field, then use the float to pick the item. Two clicks in the catalogue — filter to the bracket, sort by float — get you the best copy in the range you can afford. That is the whole technique, and it consistently beats buying by label alone.