GUEST: My husband and I are big yard salers, or garage sale. We go out every weekend and we find something. So we were on our way home and we saw a sign, and it was kind of off the beaten path so we said, "Let's go out on our way home." And this elderly couple just had... out in their driveway just had, like, three big rugs, you know, a lot of other stuff.
APPRAISER: Yeah.
GUEST: And so we said, you know, "The rug's for sale, and how much?" And she told us, so we said, "We'll take them all."
APPRAISER: How long ago was that?
GUEST: I think we've had it probably about a year. I think we bought it maybe last summer.
APPRAISER: And do you have a special affinity for rugs, or is it just that they caught your eye in this instance?
GUEST: I kind of like rugs, yeah. And just the colors in this one are just unreal.
APPRAISER: And did you tell me how much you paid?
GUEST: $15.
APPRAISER: $15.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: Well, you have a good natural eye. I really adore this rug. It's a kind of fireworks of design and color, and it all comes together to create a really decorative design. It is a Caucasian rug from the Caucasus mountain range, which is right near Azerbaijan and Armenia.
GUEST: Oh, okay.
APPRAISER: Just in Southern Russia. Just above Iran. Probably woven about 1900 or so.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: From the small village in that area called Karabagh. Karabagh is kind of mountainous. They're known for their very geometric designs. They're known for their strong primary colors. And they're known for rugs that have a pretty thick mat. I like the medallions. You have one, two, three, four, five medallions. Very robust colors. A color that really appeals to me in this, starting from the outside in the border, this terrific kind of shrimp colored border is very, very pretty. And then moving in, when you have this very bright lime green color, I think it's just terrific, too. The design elements are very spontaneous. This would have been woven from memory. It wouldn't have been woven from a design or a cartoon. It's a tradition that's passed down in this village from one family to the other. An old-time rug dealer said there's only five things that matter with an Oriental rug: color, color, color, color and color.
GUEST: Really?
APPRAISER: And this has color.
GUEST: It does.
APPRAISER: It's not necessarily a collector's rug. It wouldn't appeal to a museum collector, say. But it's extremely decorative. And the condition's so good that you can actually use it. You paid $15 for this one rug?
GUEST: This one rug, $15. She had three rugs. We paid $45 for all three, but we paid $15 for this one.
APPRAISER: The rug market today, in 2013, is pretty strong, particularly for something decorative like this. In terms of its auction value today, my feeling is that at a good international rug auction, it would fetch somewhere between $4,000 and $6,000.
GUEST: Wow. Yay! $15, that's pretty good.
APPRAISER: Pretty good return on investment.
GUEST: Pretty good, yeah.
APPRAISER: That'll keep you getting up on weekends and looking for more, won't it?
GUEST: That will keep me going Saturday mornings, that's right.
