Souvenir Nova | Rising Skull (Minimal Wear)

Skin overview

This Nova pairs a pale cream body with a ribbed brown pump and a radiating sun-and-skull design on the stock. Minimal Wear keeps that look almost intact, with only small marks on the sharpest edges that are hard to spot in game. It is a practical way to get a near-clean light finish.

Item type: shotgun. Restricted sits in the middle of the rarity scale: noticeably rarer than Mil-Spec, yet not truly rare.

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. The same quality also exists as the StatTrak™ version.

How the skin looks in Minimal Wear

The receiver is painted cream with irregular dark brown edging that imitates hand-applied, weathered paint. The pump is covered with dense brown ribs over a tan base, while the barrel and magazine tube stay dark gunmetal.

Tiny scuffs may appear on the front edge of the receiver and the tips of the pump ribs. The stock and its rays stay essentially untouched. In first-person view the difference from Factory New is barely noticeable. The skull and colour balance look the same as on a clean copy.

Minimal Wear quality — float range 0.07–0.15

The whole float range of Souvenir Nova | Rising Skull is 0–0.5; Minimal Wear takes the 0.07–0.15 segment (16% 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

Souvenir Nova | Rising Skull belongs to The Winter Offensive Collection, which holds 13 skins.

The source is Winter Offensive Weapon Case (on sale since Dec 18, 2013).

Souvenir version

This is the Souvenir version: such copies dropped to tournament viewers in souvenir packages; the team stickers and signatures on them cannot be removed or chosen. Souvenir items never carry StatTrak™. There is also the regular version without tournament stickers.

Stickers and crafts

Warm tones work best: brown, gold, sepia or black-and-white stickers echo the cream and tan palette. Placing them on the receiver keeps the sun-ray stock and skull unobstructed.

What to check before buying

• Check where the float sits within the wear range, since the light cream paint shows scuffs more readily than darker finishes.
• Do not mistake the brown distressed edging on the receiver for wear, as it is part of the artwork.
• Look at the pump ribs and the receiver edges, which are the first areas to lose paint.
• Check applied stickers and any name tag, and whether the copy is StatTrak™ or Souvenir.

Who should buy Minimal Wear

• Players who want a near-clean look at a lower grade than Factory New.
• Crafters for whom tiny edge marks are irrelevant.
• A sensible compromise between cleanliness and cost.