Souvenir skins – one of the most expensive categories of items in CS:GO. Since their number on the market is limited, they cost a lot, and if you're lucky enough to get a skin with a high rarity, you can make good money on its resale.
How to get souvenir skins
The only way to get new souvenir skins – is special souvenir sets, which, in turn, are distributed only during majors. Previously, they could randomly drop them to those who watch match broadcasts, but starting with StarLadder Berlin 2019 the scheme has changed: now special tokens are used to acquire them, which can be purchased separately or bundled with a spectator pass, as well as earned by completing tasks. Also, owners of cases can resell them on the Community Marketplace like other items.
Visually, souvenir skins are distinguished primarily by the presence of stickers that are rare or even unique (i.e. they cannot be obtained in any other way). These are usually tournament logos, logos of the teams involved in the match you have chosen and the player's autograph.
How the souvenir cases are organized
Since 2013, 18 souvenir sets have been produced, usually two or three per year, according to the number of major tournaments held. Each of them includes weapons from the collections corresponding to the maps on which the matches were played.
For example, IEM Rio 2022 spectators will be able to get weapons from the Nuke, Mirage, Dust2, Vertigo, Ancient, Overpass and Inferno collections. On each item, there will be a gold tournament sticker, as well as stickers of the teams that participated in the match selected when opening the case, and the map they played on.
It is because of this principle that some skins become rare and expensive. Everyone knows the story of the souvenir version of Dragon Lore. This skin is part of the Cobblestone collection, and since the card has been removed from the competitive mapple, there are no new souvenir cases with this collection, and you can only count on those that are already on the market. Given that the probability of it falling out is extremely low, new copies are unlikely to appear, which means that existing ones become more expensive.
Even without such extreme cases, souvenir skins always cost more than their standard counterparts because of unique stickers and the fact that they fall out for a limited time. Consequently, both the souvenir cases and the skins dropping out of them can be considered a good investment for collectors. And if you missed the moment to get the tournament tokens, you can also purchase cases from us to try your luck. Plus, it's possible that the mapple composition will change again one day and you'll find yourself the owner of a new Dragon Lore.