Know Quality When You Buy Oriental Rugs Online

When you buy oriental rugs online you looking for decorative pieces that you can add to your home. Rich with history and tradition, most are woven or braided in Turkey or Persia. Before buying an oriental rug, you will want to check its authenticity. An authentic oriental rug is a rug that is handmade. Handmade rugs are far more durable than factory made rugs, and will last you years. When you go online to look for a rug, make sure that the rug has the following characteristics:

Country of Origin

Look for a tag sewn into the rug that tells you where the rug was made. Although the top producing countries for genuine oriental rugs are Turkey and Persia, countries like Afghanistan, Nepal, India and China are also places that produce fine handmade rugs. Country of origin is only the first step in identifying the quality of the rug. Just because it was made in any of these places, it does not mean it was hand-made authentically. It could have been made in a factory, so look for the following indicators as well.

Quality of the Rug Material

Good quality wool or silk is fine to the touch when you rub your had across it. Authentic antique rugs are more than 100 years old and are made strictly with cotton, wool or silk fibers. When you run your hand across the rug, check and see if there are any bumps or fuzzy spots, this means that the rug was not made with quality wool. Good quality wool is taken from live sheep. Taking wool from a dead sheep gives it a brittle quality. After use and normal wear and tear, the rug will start to shed its fibers. It is worth the money to invest in an authentic rug of good quality, since oriental area rugs tend to be much more expensive anyway. Take note that rugs of lower quality include “artificial fibers”. Even though it may be a silk rug, the term silk “blend” means that there are artificial fibers included in the material. These fibers make the rugs cheaper to make, but ultimately lessen the value and quality of the rug in the end.

Quality of Rug Design

Check the fringes of the rug. When a rug is handmade, the fringes are the stable points in the rug and run all the way through, as the other threads are woven through them. Machine made rugs are woven before-hand while the fringe is sewn on afterwards. Different designs on the rug itself will identify to you which tribes in the country made the rug. There are certain geometric patterns that are common to different areas within the country.