Good afternoon everyone-greetings from far west Texas! I purchased two used rugs recently at an estate sale and have run into a roadblock in establishing age and value. Let me preface the following statements by saying that I know very little about rugs.

I believe the first rug is of Caucasian origin with an all-over design and repeating columns of Boteh motif. This rug has clear condition issues; past repair work is evident in two sections of the rug.

My questions: am I close in my interpretation on origin and design? Understanding that age does not necessarily equate to value, can an age estimate be determined based on motif or style? Finally, given the current state of condition, is there value in this rug?

Hi El Paso Pete,
Welcome to the forum. It is a great place to learn a lot about handmade rugs from different regions where yu get the feedback of many collectors/ dealers/ experts/ rug lovers. I have found it to be an invaluable resource from experts all over the world and it has made a sigificant difference in my learning curve in studyng and knowing more about rugs. I hope my comments are helpful. There are no pics of the back, but from the front it looks to me that you have a Northwest Persian rug of Serabend origin. Age is about 1910, condition is distressed and pile is to the knot nodes with significant ends and sides missing, damaged with a coule of patchr epairs. Color is also faded and some dyes appear to be fugitive (not stable) or possibly bleached when it was made...sometimes this was done to tone down the colors or age it when it was made. If you are trying to learn about rugs, I would keep this as a 'study piece' of an antique rug made in the Northwest of Iran. For repairs f this piece, it is better to buy a rug of this type in better conditon where the repairs are not prohibitive thn to try and repair this one. You would spend 10 times a much to repair this rug vs buying one in good condition. Remember, age is important, but condition and rarity are more important. Hope this is helpful.

Hi,
Knot node describes a condition where the pile is worn down to the knot nodes. This means that there is little or no pile left and you can see the point at which the the pile comes out of the rug where the knot is tied on 2 warps.
I hope the helps.
☺☺

I agree with little Persia. Securing the ends is not as difficult or time consuming as reweaving a missing foundation repiling/ reknotting.
That is why reweaving a missing foundation at the sides or end of a rug (creating new warps and missing wefts and then repiling) is cost prohibitve unless the rug is more of a collector's piece and inherently rare. I hope I made that clear.

This is an antique piece, but not in good condition and not rare. For those reasons, costs of repairs for this rug are prohibitive and you would be better off finding one in good shape. If you want to use it in its current condition on the floor, get a good rug pad and secure the ends ... get the ends tied off so that no more knots roll off and keep the beater vacuum bar away from it. Professional rug repair will even off the rug on either end by removing all the knots on the ragged end to generate a straight line where the last row of knots are secured by a weft (foundation cord that runs from left to right between each row of knots) and then tie them off using a linen waxed thread that ties off @4 warps at a time, securing them tightly against the last weft. Tying off is not that hard to do, but creating a new foundation on which knots can be tied is difficult. This rug uses a symmetric or turkish knot and you have to know which is the bottom or top of the rug because that will determine the direction in which the knots should be tied.Smooth is from the top to the bottom, because that is way the knots were tied and hammered down. Run your hand across the rug from top to bottom and the direction of the pile will tell you which is the top or bottom of the rug. This is also why the rug has a dark side and a light side when looked at from either direction. One way reflects the light, the other absorbs it. The other difficulty in weaving or repiling is you have to get the right wool (2, 3 ply, ? ply), right color, and weft of the proper size. This is why reweaving and repiling/ knotting is so expensive. Sometimes little questions have big answers. Its fascinating stuff once you have been bitten/ smitten by the Rug Bug.