Today, I’m going to talk about a variety of trade up contracts that you can do in CSGO. You may have seen the battle scarred and fallout fedoras on many players’ loadouts and wondered, “what is this?” Well, there’s a simple answer – these are items obtained from trading with other players (or buying for key value) and trading them up.
So what is trade up? Well it’s pretty self explanatory. You trade your item(s) which usually aren’t worth as much for another one that has more value or at least equal value with some change (value will be explained further). Trade ups were introduced before the economy update and was intended to replace dupe and recycle scripts to generate profit. Another use for trade ups is that it saves your inventory space to allow you to get more valuable or aesthetically pleasing skins (ex: knives, awps, deagles).
So how do we go about actually performing these trade ups? Well first off, you must know what item qualifies as a “key” item. Key items are the following:
– Chroma Case Keys
– Dragon Lore (Currently not tradeable but can be traded up)
– Medusa’s Gaze
– Huntsman Knife(s)
– Shadow Daggers (Currently not tradeable but can be traded up)
– All StatTrak weapons
– Souvenir weapons from previous CS games
You can trade up any of these items with keys or another item of equal value. To do this, you must first go to your inventory and click on the “trade-up contract” box as shown below: >>>>
After clicking the box, it should bring you to a screen where you will input which key item(s) you want to trade for what item(s). For example, if someone wants an AK-47 Fire Serpent and they have 1 Dragon Lore and 2 Chroma Key’s, then they would type in: 1xDragonLore – 2xChromaKey – 3xFireSerpent (or any combination that equals 10
So now we know how to trade up, but how do we get key’s? Well key items are dropped randomly after receiving a chroma case. A Chroma Case is an item that can be opened with 1 of 3 keys which are obtained by leveling up your rank or bought in the store for $2.49 USD. If you don’t want to pay money for keys or grind through levels, then it is recommended to find friends who are willing to trade their chroma case with you (or trading them).
Now here comes the question, “how much should I sell my weapon(s) for?” To understand the price of an item, one must first look at its’ skin quality and wear condition. Each skin has different wear conditions that are listed below.
– Factory New
– Minimal Wear
– Field Tested
– Well Worn
-Battle Scarred (considered the worst condition)
Before we continue, it is also important to understand skin quality. Each skin has different qualities which are based on its’ rarity in the game. More information can be found here .
The prices of an item are affected by its’ wear and skin quality so if someone wants a specific knife but doesn’t have enough money for that quantity or wants to keep their items spares, then they must take into consideration the condition of the knife when trading up.
(The Process shown above will differ slightly depending upon your trade up contract layout.)
After you receive the item(s) from your trade up, it is a good idea to open a trade with a friend and check if you received the item. This way, the contract acts as an insurance policy in case you don’t get what you were promised.
So that’s pretty much all there is to understanding trade ups! I hope this article was helpful and I encourage everyone to try out trading up for themselves.
