I just started playing Arena and would like to know the differences between weapons (i.e. damage ranges and other nice-to-know facts) and what exact impact the metal (e.g. dwarven, ebony) has.
I found a claymore and a shortsword and am using the claymore because of its higher damage range. But maybe a shortsword of another quality (e.g. dwarven shortsword) would be better, provided that I find one?

Is there a list for these things? I didn't find one when searching the forum or the webpages sometimes linked here, e.g. http://www.uesp.net/arena/esparena.shtml.

Edit: I made this post after 3 hours of searching and now I found the answer to part of my question after 10 more minutes <_<
It's on this page: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Arena:Buying_and_Selling_Guide#Selling
But this rose other questions:
1. Why is there no difference between iron, steel and silver weapons/armor? Or is there a difference that's not related to damage/AC?
2. Which metal is an item made of when there is no metal mentioned? The lowest metal, i.e. iron?

1. Why is there no difference between iron, steel and silver weapons/armor? Or is there a difference that's not related to damage/AC?

Contrary to the implication on that page, iron is in fact worse than steel/silver. Steel and silver are the same because...well, just because. It's possible there's a monster that's hit by silver and not by steel, but I kind of doubt it, I think I'd probably remember that. (A lot of monsters are hit only by mithril or better.)

I should put up a page on armor and weapon types if the buying and selling guide is as good as it gets over on the Wiki.

2. Which metal is an item made of when there is no metal mentioned? The lowest metal, i.e. iron?

If there's no mention of a metal, you can think of it as steel, i.e., slightly better than iron.