[img][/img]Could anyone authenticate this carpet in the next twenty four hours please?
SPECIFICATION OF CARPET
The carpet is hand made from pure silk and is approximately 6ft x 9ft in size.
It was made in Hereke, near Istanbul, by the Ginar family. This family has been famous since the 11th century for making carpets for past Sultans. The family name is woven into the edge of the carpet.
The traditional carpet pattern is called yayla gicegi, mountain flowers, and is made from over one million double gordes knots per square centimetre. This means that the carpet contains over five million knots and took the equivalent of five years of labour to hand weave it.
The carpet was purchased by myself in Turkey in July 2003. It was not purchased from a private person and a Certificate of Authenticity is available. According to the Government factory it is definitely NOT a Chinese copy.
Although this carpet was purchased as a long-term investment, due to retirement we now need to realise our assets. The carpet has not been walked upon and unrolled once only for photographing. More pictures are available.
Similar carpets are on sale in Harrods Knightsbridge store, London for between £18,000 and £40,000

Funny for a $30,000 rug to be placed on the ground next to some potted plants

I would do the same if I wanted to take a photo in natural light. As long as it's not raining, I don't think it does a rug any harm to temporarily lie next to some potted plants.

I still hope we'll get some close-up pictures. Whether Turkish or Chinese, this is a pretty rug.

Here are all my pics. For your information I had polythene under the rug whenI laid it out to photograph it[img][/img]

Rugs with Hereke design from China come in many differnt qualities, therefore it is not so easy to explain this in a few words. Many mass producers in China use low grade silk and colors. They are produced in single knot quality, which just defines that the persian knot is used. These rugs are very light in weight, and feel more like a scarf. Most rugs in this quality wear rather fast - pricerange ca. $ 100 - 150 per squarefoot retail in 300l quality and all natural silk (the chaeper ones are B - grade). Better single knot 300l have good silk, good staple colors and better craftmanship, very clear and exact knotting - pricerange $ 150 - 200 per squarefoot. Top quality chinese rugs like the one in this post are made with high grade natural silk, very good and staple colors, 300l weave and double knot - which means they usethe turkisk knot like the original. My turkish friends will probably hate me for this, but it is the truth: There is actually hardly any difference between this quality and a average quality turkish silk Hereke - price up to $ 300 per squarefoot. The difference in price comes from the cost of labour. Turkey is geografically close to europe, therefore the cost of labour has been rising strongly in Turkey due to industrialisation since the 1980`s. In China many areas in the west are still not profiting from the boom in Chinas economy. There the price for labour is extremely low. The production of Herekes in China was actually a turkish idea. One of the worlds largest dealer in chinese wool rugs was Shefik Tuerker. He had his company in Germany, his brother his in Istanbul. The importet turkish rugs to Germany, later then persian and chinese. Since the prices for Hereke where rising extremely, it was only a question of time when someone had the idea of having them made somewhere else. So they started joined ventures with chinese companies. I would not give a squarefoot price for Hereke, because they are to different. But for a real good Hereke with 654 ore more kpsi you should calculate a minimum of $ 450 (lower qualities for less of course). The prices mentioned are for new and grade A rugs.

I wondered why Chinese rugs are often viewed as a lesser quality rug, when people still labor over making them and some are of excellent craftmanship...maybe some of this is because of how many people have 'been taken' thinking (or being told) it was Persian. It surprises me that they have not perfected the silk and dye to match an original completely. Thanks again KAD for sharing your knowledge!