I am glad you like my rug. It will be difficult to find one like this in smaller size. I could have this rug custom made in smaller size. You can send me an email, in case you might like to use this opportunity.
Your question about the fringes:
The fringes on this rug for example are ca. 1,5 inches long.
There are basically two different explenations for short fringes.
1. Wear
Stage one:
If a rug had long fringes and was used for a long time, fringes are the first part of the rug that get damaged since they are thin and usually made of cotton or silk (wool used in nomadic rugs). Often the fringes don`t wear in the same way, because not every piece of the rug is used identically. Therefore it is normal to trimm the fringes to the same lenght, which must be the shortes fringe on this side.
Stage two:
After the fringes have worn totally, or all 4 sides are damaged, the rug is cut. This means it is reduces in length and width. To make the rug look good, it is often reduced on all 4 sides fo make it look equal. Please look at the picture on the following link. There you can see, that the rug was reduced by 18 knots in length and width. On the long sides of the rug, it is cut off with a sharp knife and gets a new selvedge. At the fringed side, the material is pulled out of the construction. The remaining warp becomes the new fringe. Since most of the original fringe is usually gone in cause of time, the "new" fringe can only be as long as the rug was before.
This is a major repair an reduces the value of the rug dramatically.
2. Market requests
Many customers do not like long fringes, since it sometimes looks a little messy if they lay all over the place. German customers are very picky about that. So we trimm the fringes of all incoming rugs to 1 of 2 inches for the request of the german market. This was made on the rug you saw on ebay. Also when you look on new rugs sold in USA like from Obeetee or Jaipur Rugs, they mostly have short fringes to give them an antique look.
This rug is a typical example of rugs sold on ebay that are actually wrecks.
http://www.artoriental.d...images/kashan-ebay3.jpg On the right side of the creme colored border you see the small border stripe that is missing on the left. 18 Rows of knots where removed on each side of the rug. So the fringes are just about the same lenght as the removed pile.
Please excuse that I add a link instead of a picture, but somehow my Anti Virus Programm does not allow the script needed.