Authenticity
What we can tell you, and what nobody can.
Every rug on this site is hand-knotted, vintage, and one of a kind. Nothing here is a reproduction, machine-made, or reorderable. This page explains what we can tell you with confidence about a piece, what we can't, and what we do to each rug before it reaches you.
What “one of a kind” actually means
When it sells, it is gone
These rugs were made by hand, one at a time, often decades apart, in towns that each weave differently. No two are identical. We cannot order another, and we cannot find you a matching pair. If a rug is speaking to you, that urgency is real rather than a sales device.
The photographs are that rug
Not a sample, not a representative image of the style. Every image on a listing is the exact piece that will arrive at your door, shot in our own studio.
What we know, and how we know it
We attribute each rug to a weaving region (Hamedan, Tabriz, Kashan, Isparta, Anatolia and so on) based on structure, knot type and density, palette, dye character, wool quality, and design vocabulary. That attribution reflects professional judgment built on handling a great many rugs.
It is not a certificate. Very few vintage rugs carry documentation, and any dealer who offers you laboratory-grade certainty about a hundred-year-old village rug is telling you something they cannot know. We give you our best reading, offered in good faith, and we tell you when we are less sure rather than rounding up to a more marketable town. Ages are estimates expressed as ranges for the same reason.
What is age, and what is a defect
A rug that has been underfoot for sixty years shows it, and that is the point. The following are characteristics of age, not flaws, and we do not treat them as grounds for return.
Abrash
Bands of tonal variation where the weaver moved to a new batch of hand-dyed wool. Widely considered a mark of authenticity.
Low pile
In areas of historic traffic, and the softer sheen that comes with it.
Slight irregularity
Hand-knotted rugs are not perfect rectangles. A slight waist, a corner out of square, or an inch between the two ends is normal.
Old, sound repairs
Made during the rug's working life, and holding.
Screen color
Displays vary, and so does daylight. Color in your room will not match color on your monitor exactly.
Holes, active damage, significant reweaving, color run, and any repair we consider material to the value or the life of the rug, in the listing and in the photographs. If we noticed it, you will see it. If you want more photographs of a specific area before you commit, ask. We would far rather send you ten more pictures than process a return.
It arrives ready to live on, not as a project
A mistake of ours is not a change of mind
Our returns policy covers you if a rug simply isn't right for your space. Separately, and more importantly: if a rug arrives materially different from how we described it (undisclosed damage, wrong dimensions, a condition we missed), that is our error, not a change of mind, and we will make it right.
Want more detail on a particular piece before you decide?
Further reading: Why hand-knotted rugs outlast machine-made ones.