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Age is the factor owners cite most and the one that matters least on its own. Condition, wool and dyes decide far more, and all three are affected by how the rug has been maintained.
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Oriental Rugs
Knots per square inch tells you how fine the weaving is and how much labour went into it. A fine Tabriz at four hundred knots is a different object from a village rug at fifty. But density alone does not decide value: a densely knotted rug in poor wool with harsh chemical dyes is worth less than a coarse rug in superb hand-spun wool with natural dyes. Density explains detail capability, not quality.
Hand-spun wool with high natural lanolin content resists soil, holds dye and wears for generations. Machine-spun wool from later commercial production wears faster and feels drier. Natural dyes age into the gentle tonal variation collectors value; harsh early synthetics fade unevenly and sometimes turn colour entirely. These two factors explain most of the price difference between rugs that look superficially similar.
Even wear across the field is acceptable and expected. What reduces value sharply is structural damage: foundation showing through, moth loss, a failed selvedge, unravelling ends, previous bad repairs, and dye bleeding from a mishandled cleaning. Almost all of these come from maintenance decisions rather than from age, which is the practical point. A century-old rug that has been washed properly every few years is usually in better condition than a fifty-year-old one that never was.
We can tell you what a rug is made of, how it was made, what condition the foundation is in and what the cleaning will and will not achieve. We are not appraisers, and a cleaner who volunteers a dollar figure for your rug is guessing. For insurance or estate purposes, a written appraisal from a qualified rug appraiser is the document you need, and it is worth having before anything is cleaned or repaired.
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