Hi,
I now consider Nain the most abused amongst all Persian carpets. The other day dealer shown me a seemingly technically fine nain 6-la (well at least in terms of knot count) only to find out it is actually woven in Meshad. Apparently, the only way to distinguish such carpets is to spot inconsistencies in the design, according to him "the design doesn't look right", or "they can't get the colours right" type of subjective assessment.
I had thought only low end Nains are being produced in Tabbas, which I readily distinguish due to the low knot count and "thick" designs and wooly pile.. I did an intrusive test on that carpet by unravelling one of the fringes, but I couldn't get it to unravel cleanly into 3-pairs of threads. Is this a reliable test though? Is there a way to conclusively attribute a fine 6-la Nain?
I must admit, my confidence was completely shattered since.
regards,