GUEST: These rugs have been in my family I believe since the 1800s. I believe they were purchased by my great-great-aunt. And I've had this one maybe ten years, and this was given to me, oh, just about a year ago, and it was a wedding present to my wife and I, who were married in October.
APPRAISER: Oh, nice.
GUEST: As far as I know, they have come from the Caucasus, but that was sort of loose information. I don't have any reason to believe that that's necessarily true.
APPRAISER: Well, one of them is from the Caucasus, and that's the one that's hanging with us. These were probably bought around the same time-- I'm guessing in the early 1900s.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: And the reason I say that is because the vintage of the one on the floor is from around 1910.
GUEST: 1910.
APPRAISER: And that's called a hamadan, and it's from Persia. The one that's hanging is from about 1880.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: So the hamadan is a Persian rug that was made for the Western market, and it was made at a time when they were already starting to use synthetic dyes, and so there are some oranges and pinks in the rug that are synthetic dyes.
GUEST: Ah.
APPRAISER: And from a collectible standpoint, that sort of knocks it out of contention as a collectible rug.
GUEST: I see.
APPRAISER: It's in good condition, but we view it as sort of a commercial decorative rug from that period.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: The piece that's hanging is a little bit more interesting because it is from the Caucasus. It's called a talish, and it's from the southeast Caucasus, near the Caspian Sea.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: And these rugs were made in the 1800s and end up being very popular today because of their use of natural dyes. So they've got a beautiful, soft sort of salmon red, yellows, blues, very good geometric design. This border is the classic rosette border, which anyone that's knowledgeable about rugs, they automatically look at it and they say, "Ah, that's a talish." Now, one of the things that's interesting about the talish rugs is that their signature design is a navy blue background, completely empty with no design at all and maybe a random figure here or there. So when you see a red ground with an overall pattern, it's a little bit atypical for talish, but because you see the border the way it is, it definitely is a talish.
GUEST: Huh.
APPRAISER: It's in good condition, actually better condition than most for its age. The one that's on the floor, any guess at a value?
GUEST: Given what you've told me, I don't know, a few hundred dollars at best?
APPRAISER: I would say maybe around $300 on a retail level. And the important thing to stress here is that they were probably equal value at the time that they were sold.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: And I've seen old advertisements that list a rug like this for about $7.50.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: The piece here I would say has a retail value of $12,000.
GUEST: That much?
APPRAISER: Yes.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: They've really shot up because people recognize that the art of the village weavers and the creativity is something that you just won't see again in our lifetime.
GUEST: Right.
