How Do I Determine the Age of a Rug?
The age of a rug is critical in determining its value, but determining age
is also one of
the most difficult skills to acquire for
the rug enthusiast.
Older rugs will show some evidence of wear.
The pile may be low or worn away
exposing foundation, but relatively
new rugs can get worn quickly, and very
old rugs can sometimes survive in good condition if they have been in
the possession of thoughtful owners.
The back of
the rug offers a better
opportunity to determine age. Newer rugs will feel fuzzy on
the back since
their yarns still possess their fibrous surface. As a rug ages, even if
walked on carefully,
the underside will become polished or abraded through
pressure and friction, diminishing
the fuzzy or hairy texture. Very old rugs
will feel gritty, sandy, or even smooth on
the back. A rug that looks
tightly woven, but that still feels somewhat floppy or supple, is old, since
even tightly woven rugs become supple with time. Color or dye quality also
helps. If a rug has pale color, fold it to spread
the pile open. This will
reveal if
the color is
the same all
the way down into
the pile. If it gets
darker inside
the pile,
the dye has faded on exposure to light and is
probably synthetic. Such dyes became more common from
the late nineteenth
century on. If a rug has considerable amounts of faded dye it is made well
after 1900. On
the other hand, rugs with color that is completely uniform,
lacking abrash or variegation in color, are made with later, light-fast
synthetic dyes post-dating
the 1920's. In
the case of Nomadic and many
village rugs, a cotton foundation will also indicate a relatively late date
since after about
1930,
the new availability of inexpensive machine-spun
cotton largely eliminated
the use of wool warps and wefts.
