Factory New Isn't a Premium. It's a Supply Ratio — and It Runs From 0.9x to 111x

Everybody in CS2 trading knows the rule: Factory New costs more. Almost nobody knows how much more, because the number people quote is either a single skin they remember or a vibe. So we measured it.

We pulled every rifle and knife listing in the SkinVS inventory on November 12 — 7,907 individual item entries across 3,942 rifles and 3,965 knives — and paired up every skin that had both a Factory New and a Field-Tested price. That produced 756 pairs. For each one we took the lowest ask in each wear tier, dropped StatTrak and Souvenir variants so the comparison stays clean, and divided.

The median Factory New premium across those 756 skins is 3.18x the Field-Tested price. The middle half of the market runs from 2.0x to 5.5x. And the tails are not tails so much as different countries: 55 skins price Factory New at under 1.25x Field-Tested, while 120 price it at more than 8x. The widest gap in the set is 111x. The narrowest is 0.92x — a Factory New skin selling for less than the same skin in Field-Tested.

That spread is the whole story. The float premium is not a quality statement and it is not a fixed percentage. It is a reading of how much Factory New supply actually exists for that specific skin, and once you know that, you can stop overpaying for it.

Step 1: Count the Factory New Supply Before You Pay Anything

The first thing to check on any skin is not the float scale or the pattern. It is how many Factory New units are listed at all.

Across our 756 pairs, 323 of them — 43% — had 20 or fewer Factory New units available. In that band the price is not being set by a market, it is being set by whoever happens to be online with one to sell. That is why the multiples get silly at the top end.

Take the worst offender in the set that is not a data glitch: an M4A1-S | Boreal Forest. Factory New quotes at $15.37 against $0.20 in Field-Tested. That is 76.9 times the price for the same skin, same pattern, same everything except the float. Behind that number sit 57 Factory New units and 1,676 Field-Tested units. The premium is not paying for beauty. It is paying for the fact that this skin almost never rolls clean, so the fifty-seven that did are competing against a thousand people who want one.

The same shape repeats down the list: AWP | Safari Mesh at 41.6x ($9.56 vs $0.23), AK-47 | Safari Mesh at 37.1x ($8.91 vs $0.24), FAMAS | Cyanospatter at 111x ($13.35 vs $0.12). Every one of them is an old, cheap, high-float-range skin where Factory New is closer to a rumour than a supply tier.

The practical version: if Factory New supply for a skin is in the tens, you are not buying a liquid asset, you are buying a listing. Expect to hold it, expect the spread to eat you, and do not assume the multiple is repeatable because the next buyer may simply not care.

Step 2: Price Off the Field-Tested Comp, Not the Multiple

The second habit that costs people money is applying a multiplier instead of reading a comp. Multipliers are how a $15 skin gets listed at $400 because "Factory New is usually 25x, right?"

Cross-market data confirms how unreliable the multiplier is. On November 5, SkinsMonkey quoted an AK-47 | Asiimov at $358.62 Factory New against $55.41 Field-Tested, a 6.5x gap. The same day, an AWP | Neo-Noir was $67.76 against $55.11 — 1.23x — and a Bowie Knife | Bright Water was $78.42 against $68.20, which is 1.15x. Our own November 12 pairs for those exact three skins came out at 6.35x, 1.28x and 1.18x. Three different skins, three completely different multiples, and both datasets agreeing within a few percent.

Which means the comp is the only thing worth reading. Check what the Field-Tested version of the same skin actually sells for, check how many Factory New units are listed, and check whether Field-Tested is scarce in its own right. That last one matters more than people expect.

There are pairs where the wear ladder inverts completely. SCAR-20 | Outbreak prices Factory New at $0.55 and Field-Tested at $0.60. AUG | Surveillance is $1.52 against $1.61. G3SG1 | Green Apple is $0.26 against $0.27, and the reason is visible in the supply: 364 Factory New units against 70 Field-Tested. When a skin's float range clusters below the Factory New cap, Field-Tested is the scarce tier and the ladder turns upside down. Eleven of our 756 pairs priced Factory New below Field-Tested. Anyone who bought Field-Tested on the assumption that it is always the cheap tier got that one backwards.

Step 3: Buy the Wear You'll Actually Play

Here is the part that no chart will tell you. The premium is a supply tax, and you only pay it once. If you are buying a skin to use, the cheapest wear that still looks the way you want is almost always the right purchase, because the reason Factory New costs 3x is a reason that has nothing to do with your inventory and everything to do with how many other copies exist.

That logic changes if you are buying the top of a thin supply curve deliberately — an old collection skin where Factory New is 20 units total and the collection is closed. There the multiple is defensible, because the supply constraint is permanent. It is not defensible on a skin that still drops from a live case and gets unboxed clean every week.

Why Rarity Runs Backwards

This is the counterintuitive result, and it is the one worth remembering. Sorted by rarity tier, the float premium does not rise with prestige. It falls.

• Consumer Grade: median 7.09x (51 skins)
• Industrial Grade: median 7.45x (59 skins)
• Mil-Spec: median 3.44x (111 skins)
• Restricted: median 4.39x (83 skins)
• Classified: median 3.39x (75 skins)
• Covert: median 2.66x (376 skins)

Covert skins are the most expensive tier in the game and they carry the smallest Factory New premium of any of them. Two reasons, both mechanical. Covert skins come from live cases that are opened in enormous volume, and modern case skins are built with float ranges that produce Factory New regularly — the pool refills constantly. Consumer and Industrial skins mostly come from old collections and drop pools where the float window is wide and the Factory New tail is thin.

The same pattern shows up between weapon types. Knives carry a median premium of 2.66x across 305 pairs; rifles carry 3.64x across 451. Knife float ranges are generous and knife cases are opened relentlessly, so Factory New knives are ordinary. A Factory New Safari Mesh rifle is not.

None of this means cheap skins are better buys. It means the multiple is telling you about supply, and if you read it as a quality score you will pay 7x for the cheapest skin in the game and call it an investment.

What the Numbers Don't Say

Three honest caveats, because a 756-pair dataset has edges.

These are lowest-ask prices, not completed sales, so a single undercut on one venue moves a ratio. The extreme tail — the 111x FAMAS, the SSG 08s — sits on very thin supply on both sides and should be read as directional rather than precise. And our pair set only includes skins where both wear tiers are currently listed, which quietly excludes the most illiquid items in the game.

What survives all three caveats is the shape: a median around 3x, a middle half between 2x and 5.5x, a hard floor near parity, and a top end that only exists where Factory New is almost extinct. That is a supply curve, and it is readable before you buy rather than after.

Every listing on the SkinVS marketplace shows its wear tier and available count side by side, which is all you need to run this check yourself in about ten seconds. If you want to see the same supply mechanics operating at the other end of the market, the Frost Vault is a live case whose Factory New output keeps refilling the top of the ladder every week — the exact opposite of the old collection skins where these multiples get built.

Method: 7,907 item entries pulled from the SkinVS inventory API on November 12, 2026 (3,942 rifles, 3,965 knives), filtered to non-StatTrak, non-Souvenir entries, grouped by weapon and pattern, matched on exterior, and compared using the lowest ask in each wear tier. Cross-market checks against SkinsMonkey quotes dated November 5, 2026.