AK-47 | Asiimov (Minimal Wear)

Minimal Wear (MW) keeps the white field on the AK-47 | Asiimov even while dropping the premium a Factory New copy charges. The wear band runs from 0.07 to 0.15. The rank is Covert, and the finish comes out of the Danger Zone Case.

What the AK-47 | Asiimov looks like in Minimal Wear

The base is white, the accents orange, and dark gray panels sit along the sides. White covers the receiver with its dust cover, and the stock. Orange picks out the gas tube, the front sight ring, part of the handguard and the stock edges. The magazine is dark, with a light stripe and numbers on it. Fine technical markings run across the receiver, and there is no scene or picture anywhere.

In Minimal Wear the gray film is only beginning to show. The top of the receiver, the handguard edge and the butt plate dull first. Orange areas lose their brightness next, and the dark gray panels hide wear entirely. Telling such a copy from a Factory New one takes the inspect view; in a CS2 match white still reads as white.

Where the AK-47 | Asiimov came from

The design is by an artist posting as Coridium. He put the submission up in the Steam Workshop on December 15, 2013, under the working title AK47-ASIIMOV. He called it the sixth piece in his Asiimov series and noted that the community asked for the AK more than for any other weapon.

The collection was released on December 6, 2018. Valve opened the Danger Zone Case in the same update and counted seventeen community finishes in its note. The catalog number on this one is 801.

What to check before buying

Before paying for an AK-47 | Asiimov, go through this:

• float, because nearer 0.07 the white field stays even across the whole receiver;


• how bright the orange is on the gas tube and the front sight ring, as narrow areas fade first;


• what the previous owner left on the AK-47 | Asiimov, meaning stickers and a name tag.

Between 0.07 and 0.15 the rifle does not change its look. A rare layout is not on offer either, since every AK-47 | Asiimov carries the same one.

What the AK-47 | Asiimov costs in Minimal Wear

Against its neighbors the price works out like this:

• Factory New asks almost six times as much;


• Field-Tested is roughly a quarter cheaper;


• Well-Worn about a sixth cheaper;


• Battle-Scarred about a third cheaper.

The jump to Factory New comes from the scale, not from looks: wear starts at 0.05, which leaves that grade the strip up to 0.07.

Among the worn grades the order is not clean: Well-Worn costs more than the tidier Field-Tested. The spread between those two fits inside a tenth of the price.

Among Covert AK-47 finishes in this wear the rifle is fifth by price out of twenty-four, with four below it. AK-47 | Nightwish sits just above and AK-47 | Inheritance just below, each within a fifth of its price. The edges of the rank are far off: AK-47 | Aphrodite is less than half as much, AK-47 | Wild Lotus more than a hundred times more.

Getting the AK-47 | Asiimov

One road is the Danger Zone Case, the only case this finish was ever put into.

The other is a contract of ten skins one rank below, taken from the same collection.

StatTrak and Souvenir

Stickers and craft on the AK-47 | Asiimov

The AK-47 | Asiimov has a StatTrak version. No Souvenir packages were ever made for this finish, because packages only ever covered tournament map collections. A souvenir copy can still be built by hand. The Souvenir-O-Matic puts gold tournament stickers and a player autograph on a normal skin from the inventory. That is why the odd souvenir copy turns up where no package was ever made.

The finish offers two backgrounds for a sticker. Almost anything reads on the dark gray panels of the handguard and the stock. The white flats of the receiver kill off anything pale, and an orange sticker disappears next to the rifle's own accents. Minimal Wear is paid for by its clean edges, so a craft belongs away from them.

Who this wear suits

Minimal Wear on the AK-47 | Asiimov is the buy when:

• a clean white AK-47 is the goal and overpaying for a Factory New copy is not;


• the rifle goes into a CS2 inventory for inspection, not only into matches;


• a predictable look matters, which a short band delivers.

The worn grades sit close together, so pick among them by look rather than by price. The one real price step on this finish is at the top, at Factory New.