Nova | Walnut (Minimal Wear)

Skin overview

The skin keeps the Nova close to a traditional pump shotgun: black steel up top, warm brown wood below. In Minimal Wear the difference from a factory-fresh copy comes down to faint marks that are hard to spot outside the inspect screen. It is the practical choice for a near-clean look at a lower grade.

Item type: shotgun. Consumer Grade is the lowest tier of the rarity scale: the most common skins, most often used in trade-up contracts.

Custom Paint Job: hand-painted across the whole body; this is the type where wear shows most, the artwork rubs down to metal.

The remaining qualities of this skin: Factory New, Field-Tested, Well-Worn and Battle-Scarred.

Appearance in Minimal Wear

The barrel, magazine tube and receiver are finished in dark, nearly black gunmetal with a slight sheen. The pump forend and the stock are coated in reddish-brown wood colour with fine figured grain lines that run in ribs across the forend and along the grip area of the stock.

Small light marks may appear on the very edges of the forend and the bottom of the stock. The receiver and barrel remain clean. At normal distance in game the skin is practically identical to Factory New. The grain pattern is fully readable.

Minimal Wear wear: float 0.07–0.15

The whole float range of Nova | Walnut is 0.06–0.8; Minimal Wear takes the 0.07–0.15 segment (11% of the scale). The lower the float within the range, the cleaner the surface looks and the higher a copy is usually priced.

Origin of the skin

The skin’s collection is The Inferno Collection with 6 skins in total.

It drops from:

• Boston 2018 Inferno Souvenir Package
• DreamHack 2014 Inferno Souvenir Package
• DreamHack Cluj-Napoca 2015 Inferno Souvenir Package
• ESL One Cologne 2014 Inferno Souvenir Package
• ESL One Cologne 2015 Inferno Souvenir Package
• ESL One Katowice 2015 Inferno Souvenir Package

And 2 more — souvenir packages and other sources.

What it costs in each quality

By price this skin is 3rd of 10 skins Consumer Grade Nova in this quality (the first being the dearest).

Souvenir version

There is also a the Souvenir version with tournament stickers.

Which stickers suit it

Gold, brown, beige and muted paper-style stickers match the wood tones and keep the classic look. Placing them on the dark receiver gives better contrast than putting them on the brown stock.

What to check before buying

• Check the float position within the wear range, since low floats keep the forend edges noticeably cleaner.
• Inspect the forend edges and the stock grip, as they are the first parts to lose the brown coating.
• Souvenir copies carry fixed stickers, so make sure their look suits you before buying.
• Check for a name tag or applied stickers that may change the plain wooden look.

Who should buy Minimal Wear

• Players who want a near-clean look without aiming for the top grade.
• Sticker crafters who need a clean base for warm-toned stickers.
• A balanced pick that looks almost new in game.