Free valuation, at your home and with no obligation

Before the visit: three photographs, two measurements

We do not travel blind, and that is not in your interest either. Send three photographs by e-mail or by WhatsApp: the front of the rug in full, the back in full, and a close-up of the knotting taken from a few centimetres away, in daylight and without flash. Add the exact dimensions in centimetres, measured excluding the fringes.

Those three images settle the essentials: hand-knotted or machine-made, approximate density, type of knot, family of origin. You receive a costed range within 48 working hours. If it seems wide of the mark to you, we leave it there and nobody has lost a day.

What we look at on site

The examination is done with the rug unrolled, in front of you, and it takes as long as it takes. We turn the piece over first: it is the back that gives the type of knot, the density counted per square decimetre, the nature of the warp and the weft, and the trace of earlier restorations.

We then run a hand over the pile to judge the height left, we open the selvedges, we pull gently on the fringes to see whether the warp is running. We look for abrash, which marks a vegetable dye. Above all we look for what does not show in a photograph: an old dye bleed, a water ring, a smell of cellar or of urine, larval deposits under a piece of furniture, a reverse stiffened by glue.

Finally we measure the rug ourselves, excluding the fringes. A difference of a few centimetres on a large piece changes the area, and so the figure. We also note the format: a very large rug called for more material and more work, but it is harder to place today, and that is said in front of you rather than kept in our heads.

What you receive in writing

We leave a document, not a spoken word. It states the nature of the rug, hand-knotted or not, the declared origin, the dimensions taken, the material of the pile and of the foundation, the condition observed with its faults named one by one, and the amount offered.

That document is useful beyond us: to compare several offers, for a division between heirs, for an insurance declaration, or simply to come back to in six months. We make it conditional on no sale and we do not take it back with us when we leave.

With no obligation, and if you sell

With no obligation means exactly that: no call-out charge, no commission, no obligation to sell, no call back two days later. If our figure does not suit you, the auction room and the private advertisement remain open, and we will tell you frankly when that is the better option for your piece.

If you sell, everything is done there and then: we roll the rug, we strap it, we take it away, and collection is free, including from an upper floor. Payment is made on the same day: cash up to €3,000, instant transfer or banker's draft above that, as Article 67 of the Act of 18 September 2017 on the prevention of money laundering requires, capping any cash payment at €3,000. You keep a detailed receipt.