A simple check of dye stability in which a damp towel or cloth is left lying on the pile of a rug for several minutes and then examined for transferred color. Hand-knotted rugs colored with natural dyes typically show little or no bleeding, whereas hand-tufted and machine-made rugs colored with chemical dyes tend to start running, so the result serves as one clue among several to whether a rug is authentic. Even a genuine rug can bleed after a careless wash or an unattended spill.
The warp ends that extend past both short ends of a rug. In a hand-knotted rug the fringe is not a trim added at the end but the visible continuation of the foundation, whose warp threads can be followed through the whole rug on its back, so it is made of the same fiber (cotton, wool or silk) and shows what the foundation is made of. It should not be cut off; if it has to be hidden, it can be tied back against the reverse. Weavers cut, tie, braid or decorate it, with braided or decorated ends especially common in tribal and village rugs, and how it is finished helps identify the origin; it is also seldom perfectly even, one end often running longer than the other. A fringe attached afterward, or none at all, points toward a machine-made rug.
A rug made by punching pile yarn through a stretched cloth base with a hand-held tufting tool and fixing the loops with a glued backing, rather than tying knots by hand around warp and weft threads. Its back shows cloth and adhesive instead of individual knots and feels less soft than a knotted rug's. It ranks below hand-knotted and above machine-made rugs, does not last as long as a knotted rug, and is not considered a genuine Persian or Oriental rug. Because it is sometimes sold simply as "handmade", the term hand-knotted is the one that identifies a knotted rug.
A loose sales label for a rug made by hand rather than by machine. It is sometimes simply another word for hand-knotted, but it is not a guarantee of it: some dealers apply it to hand-tufted rugs, in which yarn is punched through a backing with a hand-held tufting gun. Hand-tufted rugs rank below hand-knotted ones, are not expected to last as long and are not considered authentic Persian or Oriental rugs, so hand-knotted is the term to look for in a description. Machine-made rugs rank lowest.
A rug produced by industrial machinery, typically on power looms, rather than knotted by hand, usually from synthetic fibers such as polyester, polypropylene or nylon, and finished in hours rather than months. Its design looks perfectly symmetrical yet slightly fuzzy, and its edges measure almost exactly alike. The back feels stiff and plastic-like, with a regular honeycomb texture on which the pattern cannot be read. Any fringe is a uniform synthetic trim attached at the end of production, and some rugs have none, unlike a hand-knotted rug, whose fringe is its own foundation threads. Machine-made rugs are less expensive, of lower quality and wear out sooner, and are not authentic Persian or Oriental rugs.
Wool yarn spun by mechanical equipment rather than by hand or on a manual wheel, the counterpart of hand-spun wool. Machine-made rugs are built on machine-spun or synthetic yarns, and in judging wool quality machine-spun ranks below hand-spun, which yields finer, softer threads with more sheen. Spinning is only one factor in wool quality; the sheep's grazing, the elevation they live at and the season of shearing count as well.
A hand-knotted rug from the weaving lands of Asia and the Middle East, usually named for the city or region it comes from and known for intricate designs. In the trade pairing “Persian and Oriental,” Persian means made in Iran and Oriental covers the other origins, such as Turkey, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and China, for example Pakistan-made Kazak, Oushak-design and Bokhara rugs or Afghan Khal Mohammadi rugs; used broadly, the word also takes in Persian rugs. Look-alikes from Pakistan, India or China are not Persian. Only hand-knotted rugs are authentic; hand-tufted rugs, which are sometimes sold as “handmade,” and machine-made rugs rank below. A rug’s country and city of origin tell a buyer what to expect of its typical colors and quality.
An industrial loom driven by machinery rather than by a weaver's hands, on which machine-made rugs are woven through an automated process, typically from synthetic or machine-spun yarns. Because no one ties knots by hand, the design comes out perfectly aligned and symmetrical, the back feels stiff and plastic-like, and the pattern and colors cannot be read from it as they can on a hand-knotted rug. The process is faster and less labor-intensive than hand-knotting, giving a less expensive rug of lower quality.
An edge finish in which yarn is wrapped over and over around the outer edge of a rug, by machine or by hand, forming a rounded, rope-like band. It is the usual finish on the long sides of machine-made rugs (fringe usually marks the warp ends), and the way a worn edge of a hand-knotted rug is rebuilt (the repair called overcasting). The original edge of a hand-knotted rug is normally a selvage, woven in as the weft wraps the outermost warp during weaving, rather than an applied serge. On hand-made pieces, the evenness of the serging is a quick clue to the care taken in finishing.
The degree to which a hand-knotted rug holds true, parallel edges and a width that stays nearly the same at the top, middle and bottom. A machine-made rug almost always measures identical at every point, but a handmade one never does exactly, because wooden looms expand and contract over time, and wool foundations, which also react to humidity, do so more than cotton ones; village and tribal weavings are especially prone to being crooked. A difference of an inch or two (2.5 to 5 cm) is acceptable, while major differences count as a flaw that lowers quality and value. It is checked by eye from a distance, against the lines of a hard floor, or by measuring the top, middle and bottom with a tape.