If your feed is all fade knives and neon dopplers, knife | Stained is the palate cleanser. Display name knife | Stained, internal aq_forced, finish #43. Valve’s lore says lemon juice and mustard on the blade—in match it reads as green rust over a dark base, not kitchen chaos. Uncommon dagger skin, full Patina wear 0.0–1.0, shipped 14 Aug 2013 with Arms Deal alongside the first knife finishes. No workshop artist; this is the template for “official oxidized old metal.”

What you’re actually buying

Stained skips mirror shine. Copper-green patina lives in blotches and uneven color, so FN still feels aged and BS pushes rust and scratches hard without erasing the silhouette. Spine, edge, and guard wear differently—screenshots lie; in-hand lighting and blade geometry matter more than a flat listing photo.

You might think the edge looks messy—try it under a black light.

Wear & inspect checklist

• Same float, different knife: Karambit vs Bayonet vs Flip changes where green sits on the curve.
• Float climbs: bright rust turns muddy; guard and tip usually go “dirty” first.
• Patina fans: filter by knife type and float on C5GAME or Steam Community Market, then 3D inspect every candidate—seller text rarely matches your taste.
• Bonus: hunt the black-light contrast Valve hinted at; dark lobbies reward a second look.

Shopping verdict

Buy if you want a quiet, recognizable Patina knife without rainbow tax, and you’ll inspect per blade shape. Skip or bargain-hunt if you need clean edges for flex screenshots—Stained fights that at most floats. Sweet spot: low–mid wear where patina reads intentional, not mush; price hunt on C5GAME/Steam by model, not generic “Stained FN.”

Editor’s notes

Stained is old enough to be nostalgia and cheap enough to be a wear experiment knife. I treat listing photos as a warning label: if the tip already looks like it lived in a puddle, assume in-game matches. Black-light checks are silly fun and sometimes the only way to tell “character” from “accident.” For a first Patina knife, Stained beats chasing a name you’ll swap in a month—just pick the handle you actually spin in inspect.