awesome buy, even though this is worn.

4 things for this rug which will make sense in a min:

one, the light blue weft. Leads me to believe sarough.

second, the look of the wool: older arak/sarouk,

Third, the fringe is woven into a flatweave (mahal, sarouk, arak)

lastly Then the knots: symmetrical with slight offset...

Everything together, my most educated guess is a semi-antique Mahal. I'm almost certain Mahal rugs had a flavor of all these areas previously mentioned, then brings them together. All these areas are in very close proximity.

the border is much different in this one, but if you look close the colors are similar,

http://www.spongobongo.com/em/ww997.htm


If you sell this rug, I would imagine you should get at least $300- 400. Maybe even more. If you advertise it, call it a Mahal rug from the early 1920s

I finally got a full photo of the rug .(Well,almost).I thought I'd post it so you could get a better idea of the design and amount of wear,in case you wanted to amend your previous estimate.The green motif in the border is faded to tan at the far end.
http://i366.photobucket....o106/golgi01/deck043.jpg
Thank you,again.this site has me HOOKED!
Gail

when I look at the underside and worn areas on top,the color I see is mid/light blue.The photos make it look very white.

Hello,
I am having trouble making out all the detail in your image but I think it is a single weft. With most rugs there is at least two wefts and when one goes over one goes under each warp. So every warp (the warp makes the fringe at each end) has a weft over it. With a single weft every other warp is left uncovered. Unfortunately I am going blind and your image is not as clear as I need but it looks like every other warp is uncovered. If so it is a Lilihan. If not then I would agree with the attribution of Mahal.
The late James Keshishian wrote a good article with images of weft structure: http://www.spongobongo.com/jktech.html
Best wishes,
Barry O'Connell
http://www.spongobongo.com/