★ Flip Knife | Case Hardened (Factory New)

Skin overview

★ Flip Knife | Case Hardened pairs a back-swept, sharply pointed blade with a heat-treated patina of gold, bronze, blue and violet. In Factory New the coloured metal looks fresh and saturated, and the transitions between the warm and cool tones read clearly across the whole blade. It is the grade for a buyer who wants the pattern shown as intended.

Item type: knife. Covert is the top weapon rarity: usually the most prominent items of a collection or case.

Patina: an aged metal surface; wear is part of the design, so the gap between qualities is less visible.

Appearance in Factory New

The back-swept blade carries the whole finish: a heat-treated patina where gold and bronze metal is mixed with patches of blue and purple. The spine near the guard has a serrated section, and the coloured patches flow across it as well as over the flat of the blade. The handle is an olive, textured grip with angled grooves, with the pivot and thumb hole showing small hints of coloured metal. The placement and amount of blue differ from copy to copy, so no two blades look exactly alike. On worn copies scratches appear first at the tip, along the cutting edge and on the serrations, then spread over the flat of the blade.

The blade is clean, with no visible scratches on the edge, tip or serrations. The patina keeps its full saturation, and the borders between gold, bronze and blue are sharp. In game the colours read clearly during inspect and in first-person view. The handle looks untouched.

Factory New quality — float range 0–0.07

The whole float range of ★ Flip Knife | Case Hardened is 0–1; Factory New takes the 0–0.07 segment (7% of the scale). Within the range, copies with a lower float look cleaner and are valued higher.

Origin of the skin

It drops as a rare special item from:

• CS:GO Weapon Case (on sale since Sep 20, 2013)
• CS:GO Weapon Case 2 (on sale since Sep 20, 2013)
• CS:GO Weapon Case 3 (on sale since Sep 20, 2013)
• Operation Bravo Case (on sale since Sep 20, 2013)
• Winter Offensive Weapon Case (on sale since Dec 18, 2013)
• eSports 2013 Case (on sale since Jul 9, 2014)

And 5 more — souvenir packages and other sources.

What it costs in each quality

Compared with the Factory New quality, the others go like this:

• Minimal Wear — 1.8× cheaper
• Field-Tested — 2.2× cheaper
• Well-Worn — 2.1× cheaper
• Battle-Scarred — 2.2× cheaper

The comparison uses our cheapest listing of each quality; where there is none, the market reference.

By price this skin is 6th of 23 skins Covert Flip Knife in this quality (the first being the dearest).

StatTrak™ version

There is also a the StatTrak™ version: the counter on the weapon tracks kills. Right now it is 1.6× dearer than the regular one.

What to look at before you buy

• Look at the pattern on the actual copy, since the amount and placement of blue differ between blades.
• Check both sides of the blade in inspect, because the pattern on one side does not predict the other.
• Note where the float sits within the wear grade, as copies at the cleaner end show more saturated colour.
• Look at the tip and cutting edge first, as these show wear earliest.

Who should buy Factory New

• Collectors who want the patina at full saturation.
• Buyers choosing a specific pattern who want it shown without scratches.
• Conclusion: the grade for the cleanest look of the finish.