“I applied mine heart to know wisdom”

It’s most likely not an interesting question; why are you interested in rugs? Who cares? People are interested in different things for a number of reasons. I think the only thing worth saying is that, surprisingly, it’s not actually the money. Many individuals looking at the prices of antique oriental rugs for the first time are bound to get sticker shock. I know I did. And while there can be some excitement in selling a rug, especially when it was obtained for a pittance, that money really will just be rolled into buying another rug, and the cycle continues.

No, the really interesting thing, and the thing I wish I had more of when starting to learn about rugs is easily accessible knowledge. It feels like a lot of information around rugs is purposely obtuse and labyrinthian. That being said, the one thing that seems to be true (unfortunately for those looking to learn and identify rugs), is that truly understanding rugs will only come from years of experience working with them, a feat I, and many others with a similar interest have not achieved. Day-in and day-out handling new pieces, examining them, and cross-referencing them with research material is something few people will ever get to experience, and that’s why true experts in textiles are few and far between.

So there are a few lessons to learn here. The first would be that skepticism is a good tool in the arsenal of the individual looking to buy a rug, both for personal use and resale. A good rug salesman will show some amount of humility, unless the