On the knife weapon line, Stained (internal finish id aq_forced) is a first-party Valve coating—not a Workshop skin. The official story is deliberately low-key: lemon juice and mustard are dripped onto the steel to force an oxide layer, giving you aged metal with a faint “back-room lab” vibe. No holo circus—just patina that tells you where it aged and how.

Think the blade looks messy under normal light? Try a black light before you judge.

That flavor line is a shopping hint, not decoration. Static listing shots lie; spin the knife in inspect, swap lighting angles, and if you can, sanity-check dark areas the way the text nudges you toward UV-style viewing.

Release snapshot

August 14, 2013—same broad window as Arms Deal, when this finish entered the tradable timeline. Reference sites map the Stained family to aq_forced; if you’re building a mental map of early knife finishes, line it up against other standard drops from that era and compare craft vs. lore.

What you’re actually buying

• Item class: knife
• Finish: Stained (人工染色)
• Rarity: Uncommon
• Craft: Patina / verdigris-style oxidation
• Float range: 0.00–1.00

Patina partitions the blade: oxide sits on top of base metal. As float climbs, that layer thins—tips, spine, and grip-adjacent zones tend to silver out first, and blade shape changes the rhythm (preview art is Butterfly; inspect on your knife model before checkout). The identity is the forced oxide, not particles or glow—solid pick if you want texture without turning the playfield into a light show.

Inspect checklist (full wear spectrum)

Treat low, mid, and high wear as one shopping axis:

• Low float: oxide coverage reads “complete”; color blocks stay chunky.
• High float: bare metal wins; patina becomes accent, not headline.

In inspect, trace tip → spine → handle for wipe patterns and transitions. Re-check shadows after the black-light tease—easy to miss depth if you only glance in daylight. It’s a 2013 catalog finish: foundational, not meta-flex. On C5GAME or the Steam Market, weigh float against where the wear landed; two “same float” listings can look like different skins.

Shopping verdict

Buy if you want a quiet, story-forward knife that rewards inspect time and doesn’t demand premium effect tax. Skip or bargain hard if you need instant read-at-killcam pop—Stained wins in close-ups, not scoreboard flex. Budget shoppers: prioritize clean patina distribution over chasing a magic float digit; mid-high wear can look intentional if the metal breakup sits where you like.

Editor’s aside

Arms Deal-era finishes like this are the unsung loadout glue—players overspend on knives that look identical at range while Stained actually changes character float-to-float. I’d rather overpay slightly for a tip that still holds green than save five bucks on a spine-wiped mess. And yes, re-read that flavor text: it’s Valve telling you the skin has a second act—honor it with thirty seconds of inspect before you click buy.