Hello,

I'm not sure whether this is the best forum to post this question, but I'll give it a try.

I'm just beginning to collect carpets. I have a couple of them, and currently looking for a new one for one part of the lounge. However, I visited this new dealer in town, and saw a nice runner for my front hallway. It's a Jaunty Co Inc Coronal Red 4x12 as shown here: http://www.jauntyinc.com.../designs.asp?DesignID=65
It's not a "real" carpet in the sense that it is hand-tufted rather than hand-woven, but it is 100% wool. However - and I realize the purists may argue with this - I'm considering buying this as the hallway gets a fair amount of traffic, and I can't bear the thought of laying an oriental carpet there yet.

Now my biggest problem is what would be a fair price for this carpet? I've seen opinions ranging from valuing a hand-tufted carpet as low as a machine-made carpet, while others seem to hold them in higher regard. Any suggestions?

Thanks.

Thanks RugPro,

The dealer claims the wool yarn to be 350g, the pile is about 12-15mm. The lowest price I could extract from them is $450, which I believe it is a bit high.

I'm trying to understand what would be a fair price, and whether i would be better off to consider an oriental carpet for the hallway as well...

Thanks Cloudband,

It looks like an oriental may be indeed the way to go. As I mentioned before, I am just starting on oriental carpets, but I don't envisage changing the decor soon, unless I move house. The only reason I was interested in the runner is because such sizes are difficult to find. I understand though the concerns about the life of this carpet, and they definitely play a factor in my decision making. I generally tend to purchase items for the long term, and this one doesn't seem to fit with that.

If I decide to go for an oriental for the hallway, I'll probably be looking for something that can withstand the normal hallway traffic (not very heavy, but still traffic). Given that I have tiles on the hallway as opposed to wooden floors, I'm looking for something fairly thick (high pile). The style of the runner was ok - I'm mainly looking into red/yellow(gold) and probably black colors. I'm probably pretty vague at this stage, but any suggestions would be welcomed.

Thanks.

P.S. The dealer was local, so no need for shipping charges on the carpet. The carpet looks fairly new, and has a strong rubbery smell to it, which the dealer attributed to being locked up in a container for 6 mths - given that statement I'd say the carpet is at least a couple of years old. The wool doesn't seem to shed.

Hi everybody,

Sorry for the long delay - just returned from an overseas trip earlier this week. I returned the hand tufted carpet to the dealer before going away. Based on advice from this forum, I decided to look for real carpets. I visited another dealer today, and I found a couple of very nice chobi carpets. One of them is a runner, about 7m (23ft) long, 80cm (2ft8) wide, 144kpsi, all wool. The other one is a small carpet, 5x6.5, 169kpsi, wool with silk (the dealer claims 35% silk and 65% wool). What should I expect to pay for these?

Thanks.

How much are you paying for these rugs if you don't mind me asking?

Hey Ghex

As per the black rug, it certainly can be considered a Jaipur. A newer rug for sure, maybe imported within the last 2 years or so. Great looking rug. As you can see, the appraisal doesn't change much for the black rug (revised here to accommodate Jaipur India rug. Really, the same goes for the "agra" rug. They call these Chobi's, but the fact of the matter is, this looks to me as though it's a tea washed rug that may be fairly old. It's hard to tell without seeing the height of the pile, but again, with the style of the rug adjusted, this would be another appraisal, and incorporating the N.A. Style of agra with tea wash, this would be a second.

The final values are certainly in fair value range for $3200 for the two given the new information: $17-1800 for the runner, (given tea wash) $1800 for the black area rug. If it is real silk, this is a good thing. If you did the burn test, that should be sufficient. Basically when burned, the material should smell something like burned hair, as silk is protein based. Worst case scenario, if it smells like hair and looks like silk, it could be a chemically treated wool, but it doesn't appear as such. Even if it were art silk, I'm not entirely sure this would have a tremendous affect on value. For the package deal, your in the right vicinity, and I would say this certainly is a fair market value for these rugs as reflected in both the appraisal tool and my experience in retail. If you really wanted to push it a little more, I would ask for padding, although it's not always necessary, does help with protecting the rug, your floor and add cushion.


here is the actual breakdown as I've done from the appraisal tool:

Runner (bear in mind this is given a tea wash has been given to the rug)

difference in price range = $1,535 to $2,728 difference of $1193

131-220 KPSI = 89 of which you have 13 Knots

Make your equation for the knots

13/89*.8*1193 = 139.40

You have 1 of the 2 colors listed so that is 1/2*.20

Make your equation for the colors

.5*.2*1193 = 119

Add the two totals together and to the price floor provided by the Estimator Tool. 1535+119+139= 1800

difference in price range = $1,535 to $2,728 difference of $1193

131-220 KPSI = 89 of which you have 13 Knots

Make your equation for the knots

13/89*.8*1193 = 139.40

You have 1 of the 2 colors listed so that is 1/2*.20

Make your equation for the colors

.5*.2*1193 = 119

Add the two totals together and to the price floor provided by the Estimator Tool. 1535+119+139= ~$1800

Black Rug

difference in price range = $1,252 and $2,226 = 974

131-220 KPSI = 89 of which you have 38 Knots

Make your equation for the knots

38/89*.8*974 = 333

You have 2 of the 2 colors listed so that is 1*.20

Make your equation for the colors

1*.2*974 = 195

Add the two totals together and to the price floor provided by the Estimator Tool. 1252+333+195= ~$1780



I guess after all is said and done, the appraisal tool is looking at something like 3300-3600 USD (if the runner is tea washed). So I think it's safe to say you have a pretty fair deal on the table.


I'm really happy to hear you moved away from the tufted rugs. They're not bad, it's just that they tend to be somewhat disposable and have other drawbacks. For more money, you're looking at exponentially better carpets I would say. Great finds. I hope this has helped you, be sure to let us know if you have additional questions and we're looking forward to hearing what your decision is!

It sounds like you've gone over this rug with a fine tooth comb! Like a pro :)

I see the glue most predominant in 6107. It's not uncommon for glue to be used on the edging or even on the back of the rug. It seems like Indian carpets employ this more often than rugs of other origin. Check out the post on starched rugs if you haven't already - literally there are rugs out there where the entire reverse side is glazed with a thin glue. For this rug I really wouldn't worry, especially if it's just on the edge, that's a somewhat standard procedure. I guess in some sense it's better to see it than not? Sometimes in the rugs they just tuck loose ends back into the carpet, but more often than not it's secured with a knot or glue such as this piece you have. In a way, it's a little consoling to see that something has been done to secure them further than the sometimes seen tuck-away.

As for the condition of the rug - I completely agree: this rug does not appear to have any use whatsoever. There's no evident blooming of the pile, and the sheering looks clipped rather than worn. Also, the colors used are current and still sought after. As I mentioned before, it doesn't strike me at all like a Jaipur rug, but that's neither here nor there.

Now that I see the additional (and good quality) photos of the rug in better lighting, it's clear that it has been treated with some sort of tea/herbal wash. I believe you also mentioned that you can see some areas which have not been spotted with this dye. As you can see on the Tea Wash post, there certainly are areas behind/inside knots and such which tend to avoid this treatment as seen in the second photo down. Don't get misled by the golden wash for the first photo, that's a different application than this rug has. It's kinda tough to describe, but it seems as though you've identified how the fibers absorb, or fail to absorb the dyes. It's also not unusual for weavers to just miss a small section, or go over another twice making it unevenly dyed in the fringe area. As a side note and in general, the treatment to color the cotton fringe is different than that of the treatment applied to the wool pile. This may have some influence over why there could be discrepancies between the pile and fringe tint: Cotton does not always absorb the coloring that wool does, however wool does absorb the treatment which is applied to the cotton to some extent. That is to say, a wool rug could receive a tea wash, and the fringe could show little if any at all change to the patina. It simply reacts differently to the wash. Kinda makes you wonder why they don't use the same dye on the wool as they do on the cotton... seems like it would make things easier, but the weavers have this down pat. It may have something to do with colorfastness or something, I have no clue.

The focus on this second camera is much better. I can't get over how great some of these cameras can capture images. I have a Konica Minolta it takes such incredible photographs. These are some photographs I took within the last 2 weeks or so. It was a little disappointing because I had something like 180 images printed for $75, and good 1/4 of them came out hazy with lint from processing captured on the paper. The first prints were of spectacular quality, but I had to bring back the photos that were no good. Yesterday when picking them up, instead of being on high quality photo paper with white borders, they were re-printed from a desktop inkjet on junk paper! I don't think I'm ever going back there again. You're right though, I think it's time to find a good photo forum.

The images below have both been cropped a little, so the quality is somewhat decreased.

sweet photographs and great points. Did you take both of them?