Antique Oriental Rugs
Practical Antique Oriental rugs have the advantage over the rarest rugs in that they are in much better state of preservation and can be put to actual use. To be called Antique Oriental rug, a rug should be fifty or more years old. To be Antique Oriental rug from the point of view of being duty free (no import duty) or for the museum collection, a rug should be one hundred years old.
But the collector, hobbyist and dealer refers to the practical antique as being at least fifty years old. Very few Antique Oriental rugs are dated. Actually many of Antique Oriental rugs are lovelier than some of the real old rugs.
As a rule, they are better woven than the new rug of the same type. Most Antique Oriental rugs made in the period after World War I, and especially during the depression years, are a much better rug than the rug of the same type woven since World War I. Very few people buy a rug just because it is old.
It is age, and age alone, that gives the rugs its real exquisiteness.