There are so many varieties of ancient weapons if you have great interests to collect them. Although we have a saying 'eighteen weapons', actually it is far more than that, such as scourge, sword, spear, stick, hammer, pestle, etc. In the ancient China, Gongfu was more popular than that of today, thus weapons were quite common. To appreciate an ancient weapon, it is not enough just to value it according to the time, what you are expected to do is to assess its workmanship, whether it represents the advanced level, and whether it has relationship with historical figures.

For example, most of the bronze weapons in the Spring and Autumn Period, the heyday of weapon history, are beautiful and practical with high artistic value. The sword by Gou Jian - the king of the State Yue, was still sharp without rust when discovered, and then we say it is of top grade. Many famous swords are engraved with flower patterns or posies and must be relevant to notable persons; few of common people's has that decoration. For practical ones, swords in the Qin Dynasty can be good samples because they realized the longer a sword was, the more powerful they were. Weapons for guard of honor are mostly adorned with jewelry which raises its price.