I’m pretty sure Valve never could have realized how much demand there would be for Counter-Strike skins when they first launched the Arms Deal update over a decade ago.
They certainly didn’t anticipate the cost of knife skins, which either by accident or sheer luck wound up fetching ludicrous price tags. Here are a select few rare knife skins that will have you breaking the bank—or rolling some incredible odds—to obtain.
Honorable Mention: No Star Karambit
Back in the day, scams and duplication glitches were running rampant in CS:GO; So much so, that Valve had to step in directly and restore some players’ items. Not all of these restorations were justified as some players falsely reported their items being stolen and received duplicates.
One player during those times had the luck of running into a Steam Support agent who didn’t really know what they were doing and restored their Karambit without attaching the star to the name. This is now, by all accounts, the rarest knife skin in the game, a true one of a kind, and was produced by human error.
It’s poetic to know that someone got robbed and ended up profiting immensely from it. The knife now sits in a private collection and the owner doesn’t want to sell it, so we can only guess at its actual price.
10. Karambit Crimson Web
This entry doesn’t concern one particular example of a skin but a whole category, or a category of a category if you will. The Karambit Crimson Web Factory New skin is an ultra-rare rendition that only a handful of players have ever unlocked and those that did divided them up into tiers of quality, according to the patterns.
Tier-one pattern Karambit Crimson Web can fetch maddening prices and in Factory New quality it has been sold for over $14,000 USD with its less valued counterparts also selling at around $10,000, give or take. The CS2 skin craze saw a massive inflation in skin prices—the cases themselves also nearly tripled in price in 2023—and it can get difficult to evaluate a skin properly, but the Crimson Web Factory New Karambit has always been a top dog among knife enthusiasts.
9. Karambit Doppler Ruby
The Ruby Karambit Doppler is one of the sleekest-looking skins in the game. I like to think of it as the poor man’s Crimson Web, though the price is anything but a poor man’s range. Doppler Rubies can fetch prices of up to $10,000 and sell for about $8,000 on an average day with some more rare patterns and float values getting to even higher levels.
The Ruby Karambit Doppler has been one of the most affected skins in the CS2 price hike and has at one point gone for triple its original price. The prices have been slowly dwindling since the full release of CS2 but are still way above what they were before.
8. Butterfly Knife Doppler Sapphire
The Butterfly Knife itself is one of the more expensive knife skins in CS2. Attach some color to it and you’ve got yourself a hunk of a pixelated deal that can fetch obscene price tags for arbitrary reasons, and we can’t forget about that sick animation.
The Doppler Sapphire is one of the more pronounced of such deals. Being so intrinsically rare due to its blue pattern the skin can reach astronomically high average prices. A good pattern sells for around $15,000, whereas more pristine renditions can go even higher to $20,000 or more. The skin is owned by a handful of players and while not as rare as some others on the list, it’s also desired due to its flair and looks and they aren’t wrong—the skin does look fantastic.
7. Karambit Gamma Doppler Emerald
Similar to its Ruby and other counterparts, the Karambit Gamma Doppler has a glossy diamond-esque finish and sports a bright green reflective hue that makes it a charm to look at no matter the map. For whatever reason it fetches a higher price over its red and blue brothers and on average sits at around $12,000 with, as usual, lower floats getting better prices.
The Gamma Doppler is among the more common Karambit skins one could encounter in CS2, proving its popularity in the community. It is the chief piece of the Gamma collection and is stunning to behold in person.
6. Butterfly Knife Gamma Doppler Emerald
Whereas some of these skins on the list can have cheap counterparts the Butterfly Knife Gamma Doppler Emerald really does not. The skin goes from anywhere around $18,000 to $25,000 depending on the float, availability, and demand, and it’s among the most expensive skins out there.
The StatTrak versions don’t get price hiked over their regular counterparts and, though it’s pretty slick to see those numbers flashing on the blade, it’s not as attractive of an option when discussing a skin like the Emerald Butterfly.
5. M9 Bayonet Doppler Ruby
The Ruby M9 Bayonet Doppler is a curious case and its price is directly correlated to its float value. The average float can still reach astronomically high prices at around $10,000 to $12,000 and the low floats can go beyond that to untrod lands of high value.
The skin has the same finish as the Karambit Ruby mentioned above and it’s all in all a fantastic combination of design and color that appeals to anyone.
4. StatTrak M9 Bayonet Doppler Sapphire
It appears to me the only skins players want are Dopplers or variants thereof. The M9 Bayonet Doppler Sapphire is a fantastic knife, if a bit too big, and looks amazing in its violet hue. The more expensive version of this knife is reserved for its StatTrak variant as the regular one fetches from a couple of thousand to about $8,000.
The StaTrak variants, however, can go for up to $15,000 on a solid day, and price hikes plus a lack of supply continue to impact its price volatility and availability. As a result, the exact value of this knife becomes harder to determine.
3. Butterfly Knife Doppler Black Pearl
Differing from the Fades and the Dopplers of the world by the sheer richness of color, the Butterfly Knife Doppler Black Pearl is a marvel to look at. In my opinion, the skin goes beyond the other Dopplers to give the blade a nice glossy finish that really makes you feel like you’re handling a real blade.
This pleasure will cost you though, as the skin can go from anywhere around $10,000 to $15,000 depending on how the market feels that day. The StatTrak options usually hover around the same price though there have been instances of the items being listed for more.
2. Talon Knife Crimson Web
Compared to the Karambit Crimson Web, the Talon Knife of the save variant can be just as expensive and valuable depending on the float value and the pattern it achieves. The best patterns, such as the one seen here, can go for around $14,000 on average.
The one here is also a StatTrak version which can drive its price up a bit but the focus is the pattern and the float and the StatTrak addition is a complete afterthought. The lowest floats can go for as much as a perfect Karambit Crimson Web and near or surpass $20,000 easily. The Talon is nowhere near as popular, though.
1. Karambit Case Hardened Blue Gem (387 pattern)
Seldom are there knives in CS2 that can ever come close to the community value and price as a proper “Blue Gem” Karambit Case Hardened. A buyer once offered a whopping $1.5 million for the skin and its owner refused, calling the offer low.
The Blue Gem, in particular the 387 pattern with a 0.008 float has an entirely blue blade and no gold visible at all, similar to what you can see in the picture above. The skin is a highly coveted collector’s item and that price is proof enough. It’s likely the most expensive skin in CS2 in general, rivaling the likes of the AWP Dragon Lore, AWP Gungnir, AK47 Case Hardened, and so on. The story of its very existence is a community favorite and there’s likely not going to be a skin more valuable than this.
