AK-47 | Gold Arabesque (Battle-Scarred)

Battle-Scarred (BS) is the bottom of the AK-47 | Gold Arabesque scale, yet it still ranks second by price among Covert AK-47 skins. The rifle belongs to The 2021 Dust 2 Collection, and no case drops it.

What the AK-47 | Gold Arabesque looks like in Battle-Scarred

Gold covers every piece of metal from barrel to magazine, while the wood stays cream-pink and carries all the artwork: dark lace with crisp loops. The edge of the artwork lines up with the seam between the two materials. The grip is pale lilac, and on the magazine the motif is etched into the gold.

Wear is at its most visible in this grade. The gold goes matte and slides into brass along the top-cover edge and the magazine ribs. The lace pales at the corners of the stock and the edge of the handguard. The float band for the AK-47 | Gold Arabesque is 0.45 to 0.70. The scale stops at 0.70, so Battle-Scarred takes up about a third of it.

Where the AK-47 | Gold Arabesque came from

The Workshop holds no entry for the AK-47 | Gold Arabesque: the finish was drawn inside Valve. The 2021 Dust 2 Collection was released on September 21, 2021, and the skin has belonged to it since launch. Valve's catalog number for the finish is 921.

What to check before buying

Compare these across AK-47 | Gold Arabesque listings:

• the float: between 0.45 and 0.70 the look of the gold changes noticeably;


• the top-cover edge and the magazine ribs, where the metal has gone to brass;


• what a previous owner left on the rifle, meaning stickers and an applied name.

Searching the AK-47 | Gold Arabesque by pattern index is pointless, since the artwork never changes. Between 0.45 and 0.70 there is enough difference that comparing several listings pays off.

What the AK-47 | Gold Arabesque costs in Battle-Scarred

No wear of this skin costs less than Battle-Scarred. The others cost more:

• Factory New, 1.75 times as much;


• Minimal Wear, 1.47 times;


• Well-Worn, 1.31 times;


• Field-Tested, 1.11 times.

Well-Worn breaks the order by wear: it costs more than Field-Tested. Its band is 0.07 of 0.70, about a tenth of the scale, against 0.23 for Field-Tested.

Of the twenty-three Covert AK-47 skins, only the AK-47 | Wild Lotus costs more in this wear. The nearest one below, the AK-47 | Fire Serpent, costs nearly half as much, and the AK-47 | X-Ray a third. The AK-47 | Neon Revolution and AK-47 | Vulcan are about ten times cheaper.

Getting the AK-47 | Gold Arabesque

Six tournaments produced the Dust II souvenir packages that contain it, Stockholm 2021 the first and Budapest 2025 the last.

The AK-47 | Gold Arabesque comes out of a contract of ten skins from one rank below it in this collection. The rank below holds the SSG 08 | Death Strike and the UMP-45 | Fade.

StatTrak and Souvenir

The AK-47 | Gold Arabesque has no StatTrak version, but a Souvenir edition does exist.

Stickers and craft on the AK-47 | Gold Arabesque

On gold a sticker reads as an overlay, and the line where metal meets wood is better left clear. The flat of the receiver is the one spot where a sticker does not cut across the lace. Dark stickers contrast with the gold; gold and beige ones sink into the metal.

Who this wear suits

Buying the AK-47 | Gold Arabesque in Battle-Scarred makes sense when at least one of these holds:

• you need a Covert AK-47 from this collection at the lowest price among the skin's wears;


• you pick the float by number, not by label, because the 0.45 to 0.70 band is wide;


• the gold and the lace are the draw, and pristine edges do not matter.

In CS2 the wear affects looks only. It is also the cheapest way into the skin.