Subtle shifts in color within a handmade rug, often visible as horizontal bands across the field. They arise because successive dye batches never match exactly, because differences in the wool's fat and oil content make colors change unevenly with age, and, in cream areas woven from undyed wool, because the fiber changes tone as it ages. Abrash often grows more distinct with age, so in an older rug it counts as a sign of natural dyes and hand production rather than a fault, while a newer rug is still checked for even color. Machine-made and some new hand-knotted rugs imitate it on purpose.
Handmade rugs from Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), known for their distinctive geometric patterns, vibrant colors, and cultural symbolism. These rugs often feature stylized motifs representing fertility, protection, and good fortune, with techniques dating back thousands of years, and are typically knotted with the symmetrical (Turkish) knot. Anatolian designs also traveled: Kurdish tribes with Anatolian roots carried them to Iran, where they still echo in Quchan rugs, and classic Turkish Oushak designs, together with Persian ones, became models for the mostly floral rugs of Pakistani workshops.
Dye that has migrated from one colored area of a rug into the neighboring areas, for example after a professional wash or after a liquid spill that was not properly dealt with. Older rugs that have been washed several times are checked for it in particular. A rug with no color run commands the best price, while a significant run is a serious flaw that can rule a rug out at inspection. It is damage, unlike abrash, the natural shade variation of handmade rugs.
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.
The practice of estimating how old a handmade rug is by weighing several clues together, since no single one settles it. Experts look at wear, the polish of the back, how the dye fades from tip to base, the foundation (rugs woven after the 1930s usually have cotton rather than wool), whether the design fits a particular era or a stage in its locale's style over about 150 years, and whether a supposedly very old rug shows any repairs. Old patterns are copied today, so design alone is not enough.