Definition
A Doppler phase is the specific colour variant of a Doppler knife. The Doppler finish isn't one look — it's a family of distinct paint variants, and which one a given knife shows is decided by the pattern index at drop. Standard Doppler splits into four numbered phases plus three rare "chase" pulls; Gamma Doppler, the green-toned reissue, has its own phases plus its own chase.
- Phase 1 — heavy black with pink/magenta and streaks of blue.
- Phase 2 — the candy phase: pink and magenta dominant, almost no blue.
- Phase 3 — the only standard phase with green in the swirl.
- Phase 4 — deep blue and black, no pink; the most sought-after standard phase.
- Ruby — solid mirror-red, no black. A rare chase pull.
- Sapphire — solid mirror-blue, no black. The blue chase.
- Black Pearl — near-black charcoal with one iridescent blue-teal swirl.
- Emerald — the Gamma Doppler chase: solid glassy deep green, the green equivalent of Ruby and Sapphire.
Unlike a Case Hardened seed, you don't read the phase off a number by hand — the seed maps into a small set of named variants, and an inspect tool reports the phase by name ("Phase 2", "Sapphire", "Emerald").
How the phase affects value
The phase is the dominant price driver on a Doppler, and it's independent of float. Phase pricing is non-linear: Phase 2 is usually the cheapest, Phase 1 is the purist's saturated swirl, and Phase 4 commands a premium for its clean blue. The chase pulls are another tier entirely — Ruby and Sapphire trade at several times a standard phase, and Black Pearl is often the priciest Doppler where it ships. Emerald is the rarest Gamma pull and carries the steepest premium of all.
Float matters here as a secondary driver, more than on a blue gem or a Fade, because a Doppler's surface is uniform colour — a Factory New chase pull shows the mirror finish at its cleanest, so low float adds a real premium on Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald. The rule holds across every collector finish: name the phase first, then let float decide what you pay within it. The same pattern-first logic governs blue gems, Fade percentage and Marble Fade Fire and Ice. The full phase reference is in the patterns, floats and wear pillar.