GUEST: My dad was a merchant seaman and as I understand from my mom, he purchased these in Persia when... actually, when Iran was Persia. He brought them back. This was rolled up under the bed. And the other one I have I was going to use as a wall hanging and I just decided just to use it as a rug in the living room. And I don't really know a lot about it but I just know that he got them in Persia.
APPRAISER: Right, and that's one of the things that I've found that's very interesting about the two things and the history of them coming from Persia from your father in the '40s in that this is actually European. It was actually probably made in Belgium and it's a machine-made tapestry. But they were made and exported into Istanbul, into Tehran, into a lot of the big Persian cities to be sold primarily to American or English or European tourists as Persian objects. And one thing I think that's very interesting is that it was purchased by the same person at the same time as this rug, because this actually is a true oriental rug.
GUEST: Oh, great.
APPRAISER: It's something that's called a Belouch rug. It dates from the turn of the century, about 1900, 1905. And it was woven in an area that today is eastern Iran and western Pakistan. That's where the Belouch were a tribal... a nomadic group and wove things like this for their own use and also for sale. Right. So the two are a real contrast for having come from the same market where here you have a machine-made European piece...
GUEST: Right, right.
APPRAISER: Which, in essence, is really worthless-- it's probably only worth about $25 today-- whereas here you have a real authentic oriental Belouch rug almost a hundred years old now. And the market for these isn't so strong, but today that's probably worth about $800, $900.
GUEST: Oh, okay.
APPRAISER: So it's something to hold on to because in a better market it'll be worth quite a bit more.
GUEST: Right, right, okay.
