Handmade Persian Rugs

Common sense: meat from the cow is beef; meat from the sheep is not beef. Common sense common among alcoholics: champagne made in Champagne, France is champagne. Made anywhere else and it’s not champagne.

In the same way, bourbon distilled in your own backyard cannot be called bourbon, unless your backyard is in Kentucky, in which case it still cannot to be called bourbon because legally, that’s moonshine.

Persian Rugs too are authentic only if they are hand-knotted in Iran. When you purchase an oriental-looking carpet, check for:

the shape – it doesn’t have irregular edges;
the color – there’s no discoloration in the threads mid-pattern ;
the price – you bought it for a steal at a Turkish bazaar.

If your carpet rug meets one or more of the above, it’s a fake. Each rug takes months to make by hand, so make allowance for fatigue or failing eyesight, etc. The rug weaver is like us, only human.

He won’t necessarily weave a perfect rectangle. His dyes are made one batch at a time, so his red threads won’t necessarily have the same exact shade. And for the time and effort it takes to make one Persian rug, forget about getting a bargain. Unless you’re shopping at RugsUSA.com.

Authentic Persian rugs usually sell for the thousands. I don’t know how RugsUSA.com does it, but maybe it’s because they buy the rugs direct from the weavers in Iran. But whatever, all that matters is, we can get it cheaper.

They say beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. Well, I see beauty in the natural flaws of a Persian rug. What do you see?