Needle-tip knife Chengde

Yan was one of the northernmost states during the Eastern Zhou period, bordering non-Chinese peoples whose own knife-money traditions almost certainly influenced this form. The needle-tip variety is distinguished from the明 knife types by its sharper, more tapered point — a regional characteristic that helps localize production to the Chengde area, well north of the Yan core around modern Beijing.

Bronze knife money circulated alongside cloth and shell currency in a mixed commodity system; these were not struck but cast in clay or stone molds, often in gangs, which accounts for the die-to-die weight variation common across the type.