We never had wall-to-wall carpeting when I was a kid. My parents thought it was too expensive. They favored Persian rugs and hardwood floors. Every time we moved, we rolled up the rugs and took them with us. It was practical and economical. If you knew my Dad, he would have rolled up the hardwoods too. LOL. I learned a lot about carpets growing up with these rugs. It helps me every day in my job, owning a home consignment store. But how do you tell a handmade Persian rug from machine made rug?
Handmade Persian rugs are beautiful. Machine-made rugs are beautiful. But there’s a big difference between them in price, quality and durability. It’s important, if you’re in the market for a rug, to know the differences so you make good choices and don’t pay too much or too little. So here’s a few quick tips…
How To Tell The Difference Between A Handmade Rug and A Machine Made One: Appearance
One of the best ways to tell the diffenerence between handmade Persian rugs and machine-made rugs is appearance. It may seem counterintuative, but machine-made rugs will look more symetrical than handmade rugs. Their designs and patterns will be perfect, side to side. But the overall design will often be less crisp, almost fuzzy. Why, you may ask? Well machine-made rugs have lower knot density and the designs do not contain the nuances of design that you find in handmade rugs. They are often made from synthetic materials, rather than wool, cotton and silk.
Handmade Persian rugs, on the other hand, are characteristically not perfect, but harmoniuos in their design. The patterns may be close to symetrical, but small imperefctions will be found due to the handmade nature of the rugs.
Measure Straightness
Another way to determine whether or not a rug is handmade is to measure the straightness of the rug. Measure from corner to corner in both directions. Handmade rugs will most often has a slight variation in the measures. Machine-made rugs, on the other hand, will be perfectly straight.
Feel the back/Check The Back: It’s How To Tell Handmade Rugs From Machine Made Rugs
Flip the rug over. Machine-made rugs will have stiff backs and be made of (most often) synthetic materials. To the contrary, handmade rugs will have soft backs and be made of natural materials
Another telltale sign on the back of a rug that will distinguish a handmade vs. machine-made rug is that the back will feel slightly uneven in a handmade rug. This is because each knot is tied by hand rather than by a fully automated process. Handmade rugs will feel a bit uneven. Machine-made rugs will feel smooth on the back. It’s a case of perfect knots in perfect allignment vs. the imperfection of handmade knots.
Lastly, in machine-made rugs the colors will appear unclear on the back. On the back of handmade rugs the colors are beautiful and distinct. Some people think that they are sometimes even more beautiful on the back side.
Can a “Persian” Rug Be Machine Made?
So, given all that, here’s the rub. Sometimes machine-made rugs can, in fact, be called Persian. That just means that that is the area of the world where they are manufactured, so they can be called “Persian” but still be machine made. These rugs emulate the aesthetics of their hand-knotted relatives, but they are made much more quickly and inexpensively using machine looms. They can give you the look for less, but the quality will also be less. And they will not last as long as handmade rugs.
Insider Tip: Consignment and thrift stores, like Consignments Ltd., are great places to score both handmade and machine-made rugs. And prices are far lower than other retail rug outlets. For other design topics, check out my previous blogs, like: Brown is Back in Interior Design and Sustainable Interior Design.
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