bukhara wrote:
good rugs, but from China.
KAD wrote:
They are lyer like many dealers in Turkey and other tourist destinations about orign. Both are made in China, as bukhara posted.
->You bougth these rugs as Iranian, but they are not. This is typical for any tourist destination. A good reputated seller can not do anything like this since he wants his customer to return. A tourist is there usually once, so sellers take what they can - and if they sell rugs not correclty described it is most unusal that the customer comes back and complains. But this could have happened to you in USA also (typical on ebay, craiglists or going out of business sales). The reason is the high reputation Qum or Hereke (original) rugs have. Chinese rugs copy their design, but the material used is not the same.
Is it a matter of having seen similar rugs, or is there some way for us laymen to tell, a-la the page comparing Qum with a Kashmiri analogue? Also, is the design of these two rugs so clearly Chinese or can it be considered a parody or plagiarism on one of the actual Persian designs (if so, which)?
-> It is a matter of knowing your business. A customer has very little chance to tell unless he or she is a very interested person and willing to learn. This is nothing you can learn in a week or a month or even a year. I know a lot of professional rug dealer who still cannot tell the difference between a good chinese copy and the original. First China made one to one copies of turkish Hereke rugs (Ca. 25 years ago). Then they started to modify their designs and now have a own typical style. So it is no problem for us to tell you from a picture what it is. So I would say first they where plagiats, now they are an own product that has a large influence on the markets. But both rugs have their design origin in Iran. Not so much Qum but more Tabriz (but Qum is knon for silk rugs so they sell them as Qum very often).
KAD wrote:
The fringes are (natural) silk. I am not so sure about the pile...
Would there be any reason for them to use art silk on a product with such knot density (I arrived at 500-600 kpsi)? I did try a burn test on a knot, and it smelled of burnt hair, with the ends turning into black dots.
KAD wrote:
Good commercial quality.
-> The reason for using silk in the fringes is that it is easier to sell if you do a burn test (and it is easier to use a fringe than taking a knot out of the pile). And yes, they use art silk because it is a lot cheaper. If you want to optimize your income and the customer knows nothing or little, there is no reason to sell the best instead of the cheaper quality. Most customers think if the fringe is silk, the pile is too. Typical combinations in chinese silk rugs are
real silk fringe with real silk pile
real silk fringe with a mixture of real silk and viscose pile
real silk fringe with viscose pile
real silk fringe with artifical (synthetic) silk.
The price difference in the first category is up to 200% between real high first grade quality and C grade quality (But all are hand made, have the same material and the same knot density!)
The price between category 1 and 4 is also somewhere between 200 and 250%. So you see what bukhara said: The estimator does not see the rug.
KAD wrote:
Good commercial quality.
Is "commercial" a euphemism for "non-handmade" or "a commodity"?
KAD wrote:
Price 3500$ is at the upper end for purchase in Israel.
-> Commercial means it is one of the lower quality products within its category. It is handmade, probably silk (or at least quite a part of it), but it is not one of the top range products as mentioned above.
And yes, the price in Israel or any other near or middle eastern country should be lower since there is not on value that is the same all over the world in oriental rugs. The price must cover the costs of running a business, pay empoyees and taxes and so on. Countries with a higher income level like USA or most european counties have higher prices due to higher costs of running a busines.
As I said, you could have bought these rugs in USA as qum also. Here is a link at ebay selling a rug in about your quality. Adding the size of your rugs makes ca. 80 squarefeet. So the size of this rug equals just about the size of yours together:
http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/7...9&mtid=824&kw=lgIf you read the description, it is sold as persian Qum, the style origin is called persian, but there is no direct explaination about where the rug was made (like Made in Iran, made in China). The link is just one example of many you will find on ebay.
And Shereen is absolutely right: you bought nice rugs, handmade, and price is about what you would have paid in US - you made no bargain, but it is no rip off either. So don`t worry about it, enjoy the rugs and have fun with them.
PS. Just to give you an idea: To grade A top level chinese real silk rugs approx. 650 kpsi in the sizes of your rugs would cost more than 10.000 US cash price. So the estimater is a helping tool, but no bible.
