AK-47 | Fire Serpent (Minimal Wear)

AK-47 | Fire Serpent, Minimal Wear (MW): half the factory price for nearly the same look. The float runs 0.07 to 0.15. The finish's scale is cut at both ends, with a ceiling of 0.76. The rank is Covert, and the rifle comes from the Operation Bravo Case.

What the AK-47 | Fire Serpent looks like in Minimal Wear

The wooden parts are an even ginger with no artwork. Stock and the rear half of the handguard read as lacquered wood with a coarse grain. Everything in front is green: the forward handguard, the gas tube and the receiver. The serpent's head, jaws open with white fangs and a yellow eye, faces forward on the gas block. Its body runs back along the tube and handguard top, while barrel and sight rail stay dark metal.

Pale marks are present here but gathered in two places: the raised plate with the head and the dust cover edges. The ginger stock corners lighten next, and here they are still even. Scales, single teeth and the yellow eye read in full, and the gold scrollwork on the side panel is unbroken.

Where the AK-47 | Fire Serpent came from

Valve drew this rifle; no Steam Workshop submission stands behind the finish. It is listed in The Bravo Collection, released on September 19, 2013. Its catalog number has three digits, 180, and sits beside the first collection giveaways, still built around operations.

What to check before buying

What to compare on a listing:

• the float inside 0.07–0.15, since near the top the head plate is noticeably paler;


• the dust cover edges, where gold dulls before the flats;


• the stickers and name tag on the copy.

The 0.07–0.15 stretch is short, and two listings differ by less than the eye can judge. The pattern is fixed, so price ignores it.

What the AK-47 | Fire Serpent costs in Minimal Wear

Factory New is more than twice as dear, and the gap comes from band width: the factory grade got a hundredth of the scale, this one almost a tenth. Downward the steps are small. Field-Tested is cheaper by about half again, Well-Worn by about two fifths, and Battle-Scarred by about three quarters.

Here the rifle is third of twenty-four Covert AK-47 finishes by price, behind AK-47 | Wild Lotus and AK-47 | Gold Arabesque. AK-47 | X-Ray runs almost level, about a twentieth behind, and AK-47 | Vulcan is roughly three times cheaper.

Getting the AK-47 | Fire Serpent

The Operation Bravo Case gives the finish up in its Covert rank, shared by two skins.

A trade-up takes ten skins a rank down from this set. Above the Covert rank comes the craft for gold. The Bravo Collection returns one of five knives there: ★ Bayonet, ★ Flip Knife, ★ Gut Knife, ★ Karambit or ★ M9 Bayonet.

StatTrak and Souvenir

Stickers and craft on the AK-47 | Fire Serpent

The AK-47 | Fire Serpent 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 background is busy and small stickers disappear into it, since the yellow-gold marks on the receiver pull attention away. A large sticker reads best on the ginger stock; on the green front the serpent's body cuts it in half. Warm colors sit well on the wood, and cool ones argue with the turquoise magazine.

Who this wear suits

Buying here makes sense if:

• an early finish is wanted near factory condition, but double the money for Factory New is not;


• the rifle goes into CS2 matches, where the pale marks do not read;


• picking by float does not matter, as listings inside the band look alike.

Further down the stock corners and the whole dust cover edge lighten, and the ginger wood loses saturation.