GUEST: I acquired this rug from my mother's estate. She died four years ago, and we purchased the rug from her estate. It had been hanging in her house for years.
APPRAISER: And you also mentioned that this actually belonged to your grandmother as well?
GUEST: I just know that my grandfather collected rugs all his life, and my mother had about a dozen in her house.
APPRAISER: It's a Persian Tabriz silk carpet. It was woven in northwest Persia around 1890. It is in generally excellent condition. There are certain characteristics that this rug has that most silks do. First and foremost, it has a very fine weave, and the silks from Tabriz tend to come in the copper tones with dark blue highlights. Certain things in this rug that lead us to believe it's in excellent condition is it still has the original tassels on the fringes. And one thing we always like to do when we're evaluating silk rugs, to get an idea of how good the condition is, is we want to check to see that the foundation of this is pliable and strong. So the way that you would normally do that is just to put some small folds into it and see if there's a good action. And this carpet is in excellent condition. The foundation is very strong. Another item that makes this carpet exceptional is the design. Many Tabriz silk carpets come in prayer designs or center medallion designs, and currently, all-over patterns such as this one only enhance the value of this carpet. The only problems that I really see are very minor. The edges have been resalvaged at some point in time.
GUEST: Yes, we sent it to Dallas and they cleaned it and then they put on these edges so that they wouldn't fray anymore...
APPRAISER: And that was actually a very smart move on their part, because the ends and the sides are the first things on the rugs that tend to deteriorate, and they're more prone to wear. I had done a knot count of this, and the knot count came out to 360 knots per square inch. It's one of the ways you value them as well. They all tend to be finer than, say, 150 or 200 knots per square inch, but 360 is a good quality for an antique Tabriz. So do you have any idea what value this rug would have?
GUEST: No. The estate had it appraised for estate purposes, and so we bought it from the estate for $2,000.
APPRAISER: Okay, well there's good demand for carpets like this. I believe this carpet right now in the market, in auction, would bring between $10,000 and $15,000.
GUEST: Holy smokes. That's a lot of money.
APPRAISER: It certainly is.
