Before beginning, there's an important distinction to be made between the different skin collections avialable to us. They are separated into 2 groups : Contract Collections, and Case Collections.



Case Collections are very straightforward, and easy to understand. Back when the Tough Break or the Gun Mettle campaigns were still going, you could either directly obtain a skin after completing a contract, which was guaranteed to be from the Contract Collections ; or you could obtain one of these cases, which is where the name "Case Collection" stems from. Case Collections include :

• The Concealed Killer Collection (Gun Mettle)
  
• The Powerhouse Collection (Gun Mettle)
  
• The Warbird Collection (Tough Break)
  
• The Pyroland Collection (Tough Break)

For those of you who remember them, these cases work just like the old festive naughty crates used to : when you unbox these crates, you have a 10% chance of obtaining a Strange variant of the possible outcomes, and a 1% chance to unbox a unusual variant of those. That means, there's one chance in a thousand for you to unbox a both strange, and unusual variant of these skin (and that's not even factoring in the wear of these things).
Note that Unusual decorated weapons are exclusive to skins from the case collections ; and those can't be traded-up, which is why we're going to dismiss them, since they serve no purpose to this guide.
That means, you do not need to use Trade-Ups to obtain strange variants of these skins, since they can be unboxed, and bought off from another trader, or from the Steam Community Market.



These are the ones we're going to talk about. Contract Collections are a little more complex than that. Originally, when these were delivered upon contract completion, they could only be received within the Unique quality : no stranges, no unusuals (the latter remains true to this day). Contract Collections include :

• The Teufort Collection (Gun Mettle)
  
• The Craftsmann Collection (Gun Mettle)
  
• The Harvest Collection (Tough Break)
  
• The Gentlemanne Collection (Tough Break)

These weapons were only avialable within the Unique quality when they were released. However, the 29th of February 2016 patch brought an Update to the Mann Co. Trade-Up mechanic, allowing users to put 5 freelance grade items (or above), along with strange items together to obtain a Civilian Grade Stat Clock. From this point on, all of the weapons avialable in the contract collections were made avialable within the strange quality : however, Mercenary and Commando Grades of these strange variants turned out to be excessively rare...

To obtain a Civilian Grade Stat Clock, you can :

• Buy one from the Steam Community Market
  
  
• Buy one from another player[backpack.tf]
  
  
• Buy 5 strange items of any kind, or skins that aren't civilian grade ~ right click one of them once they're in your backpack, and do as shown below.
  
  
  Click to expand !
  
  Put your 5 items together, and there's your Stat Clock.
  
  

Now that you have your fancy little Stat Clock, what can you do with it?

Well, you can apply it to any Civilian grade weapon you like ! Since Civilian grades are exclusive to the Contract Collections, you'll have to use it on an item from these collections.



The Reclaimed Reanimator, from the Craftsmann Collection


The Autumn Shotgun, from the Harvest Collection


You can also buy those from the Steam Community Market. They're very common, and can generally be bought for less than $4.

And there you have it ! You've got yourself a Strange Civilian Grade weapon from a Contract Collection ! Quite neat, isn't it?

Originally, when these were released, the TF2 trading base did not think you could obtain Strange Freelance weapons (or above) with these. The few traders who had them promoted them as glitched weapons. On March 1st, most of the interested people understood that you could trade-up for those ! If Civilian Grade strange weapons aren't good enough for you, follow me down there...

If you want Strange Freelance Weapons from Contract Collections, you'll have to make use of the Trade-Up Mechanic ; either that, or buying it off of the Steam Market (Even if Freelance Weapons are significantly rarer, they're still usually common enough for you to find what you want on the Market, even if they are in much smaller supplies).
If you decide to use the Steam Market, however, you should be aware of something : almost every single weapon you'll find is Factory New, or Minimal Wear. Those who do these trade-ups usually want the best possible outcome, and will place as many skins with these wears in their trade-ups as possible.

If you decide to take the Trade-Up path, it's rather simple to understand : see the Strange Civilian Weapons we talked about a little earlier? You need 10 of those to get a Strange Freelance Weapon. You can acquire them the way you want, but you'll need 10 to be able to do that Trade-Up.
The cost of such a Trade-Up is rather simple to calculate : if each Strange Civilian Weapon you use is worth $1.5, you'll have to pay $15 to do the Trade-Up.
Another thing you might want to understand if you plan on using Trade-Ups : as a general consensus, Tough Break Skins are usually significantly more expensive than those released during Gun Mettle, and this is for a very simple reason : around 150,000 Gun Mettle passes were sold, while only 50,000 Tough Break passes were sold. The supply for Gun Mettle skins is 3 times larger than Tough Break skins' supply.


The Country Crusher, from the Craftsmann Collection


The Iron Wood, from the Craftsmann Collection

Now we're talking big numbers.

You need 100 Strange Civilian Skins to get to that level ; and as you may have guessed, since you need 10 skins from a wear to get to the next one, price also grows exponentially. Only a handful of those exist in TF2 ; you're very unlikely to find them for sale on the Steam Market (you can use this link to check if there are any Strange Mercenaries currently being sold). You may've guessed it ; doing such a Trade-Up will cost you around $150, if Freelance Trade-Ups $15. This will require time, effort and patience. But if you really want to get your hands on some of the rarest items in the game, you'll have to go through that ! If it's not difficult to obtain, it's not worth having.


The Rustic Ruiner, from the Craftsmann Collection


The Homemade Heater, from the Craftsmann Collection

The star of the show.

As you may've guessed by the exponential price growth on each new grade, doing such a trade-up will cost you $1500. This is an extremely large sum of money, and to this day, only 9 Strange Commandos exist ; all in collectors' backpacks. A true piece of collection, an item you can be proud to own. I was not courageous enough to do such a trade-up myself, which is why I'm going to include screenshots from other traders.

There is, however, a workaround to such a hefty pricetag. Countrary to all of the aforementioned grades, you can mix Strange Mercenaries from Contract Collections with Mercenaries from every single existing collection : That means you can save $150 per garbage item thrown into the trade-up, at the cost of a risk. For each garbage (ie Strange Universal Translator) item in the trade-up, the chance to obtain the almighty Strange Commando from a Contract Collection decreases by 10%. If you want to be 100% sure to have it, you will have to put 10 Mercenaries from such collections, costing $150 each. You could even try a 10% trade-up by using a single $150 merc, even if it's something I would not recommend.

To this day, only 9 Commandos exist. You can find the full list overhere[www.tf2tools.net]. This is the pinnacle of rarity you can achieve with Trade-Ups. It demands a ton of patience, and quite a degree of stupidity to spend such sums on a weapon.


The Boneyard Revolver, from the Harvest Collection (Owner and creator : http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/id/drblue9001/)


The Boneyard Sniper Rifle, from the Harvest Collection (Owner and creator : Ravenholmzombies)


The Lumber From Down Under, from the Craftsmann Collection (Owner and creator : Broson)

Another thing you should note ; you cannot use a Strange Commando from a Contract Collection in a Trade-Up, since it's a top tier item ; there's nothing above those in their respective collections. Assassin and Elite grades are exclusive to case collections, and you don't need to trade-up to obtain those weapons within the strange quality, since they could be unboxed as is from the get go.

These, my friend, is what you can obtain by using Civilian Grade Stat Clocks to their fullest potential.

• The "Stat" on the Stat Clock model covers the original "Death Clock". You can clearly see the "H" under the "Stat" overhere. That is because that model was originally made for the Death Watches in the Expiration Date (3:00) promotional short. This "Stat" was either added as a gag, in a poor attempt from Mann Co. to hide "Death", as a reference to the short, or as a reference to the "StatTrak" clocks present on Counter Strike : Global Offensive weapons skins.
  
  
  
  
  
• To this day, the following weapons have not been created within the Strange Quality yet :
  

There you have it, some of the most expensive and rare items avialable in this game. The means you have to employ to get those are just as crazy as they sound, really. Same goes for the amount of money you have to throw into them ; behave responsibly, will ya? You should only get the more expensive skins on this list if you're an experienced trader, who can make some profit on his own. I'm not one to tell you what to do with your money, but don't put yourself into a bad situation just because you wanted that one virtual skin in a video-game.

Did this guide allow you to get your hands on some of these weapons? That's awesome ! You can send them to https://steamcommunity.com/tradeoffer/new/?partner=108364439&token=vnsuk3_2.

Further reading...

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=938019298

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=931126271

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=818926517

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=663321554