Collections are a selection of CS:GO skins produced by Valve. A total of 32 collections have been released by Valve with the most recent being the Ancient Collection, Control Collection and Havoc Collection which were released in 2020 as part of Operation Broken Fang.
Operation-exclusive Collections are available only to CS:GO players who have purchased and activated an Operation Broken Fang Pass. The three exclusive collections introduced as part of Operation Broken Fang are the Ancient, Control and Havoc collections.
A random skin from these collections can be purchased from the Operation Broken Fang store within the CS:GO game client using 4 stars.
In earlier CS:GO operations these collections would drop skins through the weekly drop scheme only to those players who have the current CS:GO operation pass.
The Cache, Chop Shop, Cobblestone, Gods and Monsters, Overpass and Rising Sun collections were exclusive to operation pass-holders during Operation Bloodhound, Wildfire and Hydra. For Operation Shattered Web three new collections were introduced: Canals, Norse and St. Marc.
Active Collections drop skins through the weekly drop scheme. The weekly drop scheme resets every Wednesday and will randomly award a player with a skin from one of the active collections or a random graffiti.
During an operation the skins from these collections drop to players who do not own the operation pass.
In-active Collections are not available through the weekly drop scheme. The skins from these collections can only be acquired through opening souvenir packages or gift packages, or through trading and the Steam Community Market.
Retired Collections do not drop at all making it impossible to acquire any of the skins from these collections except through trading or the Steam Community Market.
The Blacksite Collection was only available during the first few weeks of the launch of the Dangerzone game-mode.