Gloves are the one skin you see in almost every frame of a match, which is a big part of their appeal. There are eight glove types, a handful of containers that drop them, and a float range that works differently from most weapon skins. Here is what you need to know before you buy a pair.
Where gloves came from
Gloves arrived on November 28, 2016 with the Glove Case. Valve's announcement put it simply: "Unlike previous cases, the possible Special Items in the Glove Case are 24 all-new gloves." Gloves took the rare special item slot that knives fill in other cases, and every pair carries the ★ in its name.
You see your gloves in first person, and other players see them on your model in third person and when spectating you. Gloves have no "vanilla" version and no StatTrak version.
The eight glove types
| Type | First appeared | What it looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Sport Gloves | Glove Case, 2016 | Athletic gloves in synthetic fabric |
| Driver Gloves | Glove Case, 2016 | Driving gloves, many in leather |
| Specialist Gloves | Glove Case, 2016 | Durable tactical gloves |
| Moto Gloves | Glove Case, 2016 | Bulky motorbike gloves with hard knuckles |
| Hand Wraps | Glove Case, 2016 | Cloth wraps over the knuckles and wrist |
| Bloodhound Gloves | Glove Case, 2016 | Fingerless, studded, Operation Bloodhound logo |
| Hydra Gloves | Clutch Case, 2018 | Fingerless, studded, Operation Hydra logo |
| Broken Fang Gloves | Operation Broken Fang Case, 2020 | Fingerless, studded, Operation Broken Fang logo |
The three fingerless types each appear in only one glove set, which is why they have just four finishes apiece. The other five types appear in every set.
Which containers drop gloves
Seven weapon cases have gloves as their rare special item, but they share only three sets of 24 designs:
| Glove set | Cases |
|---|---|
| Set 1, with Bloodhound Gloves | Glove Case (2016), Operation Hydra Case (2017) |
| Set 2, with Hydra Gloves | Clutch Case (2018), Revolution Case (2023) |
| Set 3, with Broken Fang Gloves | Operation Broken Fang Case (2020), Snakebite Case (2021), Recoil Case (2022) |
One detail trips people up: Hydra Gloves are not in the Operation Hydra Case. They are in the Clutch and Revolution cases.
The Dead Hand gloves
On March 11, 2026 Valve added the Dead Hand Collection, with 17 community-made weapon finishes and 22 new gloves as rare special items. They were the first new glove finishes since Operation Broken Fang in December 2020, and all of them are Driver, Specialist or Sport Gloves.
They don't come from a normal case. The Dead Hand Terminal is the second "Sealed Terminal", after the Genesis Terminal of September 2025. You get one as a possible weekly drop or buy it on the Steam Community Market, and it needs no key. Unsealing it shows you one specific item, with its float, at a price set by Valve. You can buy it or pass and see the next offer, up to five in total. Pass on all five, or leave an unsealed terminal for three days, and it is gone. Items you buy this way come with an Original Owner Certificate you can see when inspecting them.
Gloves from trade-up contracts
Since October 22, 2025, a trade-up contract can produce gloves. Valve's notes say five regular Covert items can be exchanged for "one regular Knife item or one regular Gloves item from a collection of one of the items provided". Five StatTrak Coverts can only return a StatTrak knife, because gloves have no StatTrak version.
In practice, the Covert skins from each case lead to that case's glove set. Hotspawn's glove trade-up guide maps them out: for example, Coverts from the Clutch and Revolution cases lead to set 2, which includes the Hydra Gloves. Hotspawn also notes that the inputs are expensive enough that buying the gloves outright is often cheaper, unless you're chasing a rare pair. Our trade-up guide covers the float maths.
Float and wear
Every glove has the same float range, 0.06 to 0.80, rather than the 0.00 to 1.00 many weapon skins use. That squeezes the top wear tier into a sliver:
| Exterior | Glove float range |
|---|---|
| Factory New | 0.06 to 0.07 |
| Minimal Wear | 0.07 to 0.15 |
| Field-Tested | 0.15 to 0.38 |
| Well-Worn | 0.38 to 0.45 |
| Battle-Scarred | 0.45 to 0.80 |
So no pair can be a "0.00" glove, and Factory New pairs are scarce because the window is so narrow. As with weapon skins, the float is fixed when the pair is created and never changes with use. Our guide to float values explains the system in general.
Before you buy a pair
- Inspect in first person. That's how you'll see them for hundreds of hours. Some finishes hide wear well and others show it quickly, so judge the exact pair, not the wear name.
- Search by float. Two pairs with the same wear name can look quite different. The float range filter on Buy lets you look only at pairs near the clean end of their tier.
- Check the source set. If you plan a trade-up instead, make sure your Coverts come from cases that contain the glove set you want.
- Allow for trade protection. Gloves you receive in a trade are locked for seven days before you can trade them on.
Sources
- Brothers In Arms (Glove Case announcement) — Counter-Strike blog (Valve)
- Gloves — Counter-Strike Wiki
- CS2 Update 2025-10-22, Covert trade-ups (Valve's notes) — CS2 Meta History
- Gloves CS2 trade-up guide: which skins give which gloves — Hotspawn
- CS2 Dead Hand Terminal: how to get new Dead Hand Collection skins — Hotspawn