Seven checks, in order, none requiring equipment. Do them before price comes up.
1. Turn it over
The most informative thirty seconds available.
Hand-knotted — the design reads clearly on the back, knots look slightly irregular, and the fringe is the warp emerging from the rug itself. Hand-tufted — a plain fabric scrim glued over the back, hiding everything. Machine-made — a mechanically perfect grid, often stiff-backed, fringe sewn on.
Details in hand-knotted vs other constructions.
2. Lay it flat
It should lie flat. Persistent waviness or curling indicates uneven warp tension, which is a manufacturing fault rather than wear and cannot be fully corrected.
Sight along the length. Sides should be roughly parallel and ends roughly square — allowing that tribal weaving drifts and that is characteristic rather than faulty.
3. Compress the pile
Grip a handful firmly, hold five seconds, release. Good wool springs back almost fully and immediately; poor or dead wool stays compressed.
Then look at the pile from a low, raking angle. Good wool shows lustre that shifts as you move; poor wool is flat and chalky. This is the check that separates the two most reliably and almost nobody does it — judging quality.
4. Check pile depth
Press a fingernail into the field at the centre, then at the traffic lines and near the edges, and compare. Pile depth is finite and unrecoverable — once it is worn to the foundation, restoration returns appearance rather than value.
5. Look under raking light
Stand at one end and look across the rug at a low angle, with light behind you. Reweaving and repiling show as differences in sheen and pile direction that are completely invisible face-on.
On anything old and expensive, assume restoration has happened and go looking for it. It is normal and should be disclosed — rug repair.
6. Read the pile base and the dye
Bend the pile back along a knot row. Natural dye is usually richer at the base, where light never reached, and softer at the tip. Uniform colour from base to tip means a young rug or a chemically washed one.
Then press a damp white cloth firmly on each saturated colour for thirty seconds. Any transfer means unstable dye — the rug cannot be cleaned normally and any spill becomes a professional job. See rug colors.
7. Check the finishing
Selvedges should be integral to the weave rather than applied. Ends should be secured. These fail first and their condition predicts how the rug will age.
See it in daylight
Rug shop lighting is warm, directional and chosen to flatter. The same rug can read madder-brown in a showroom and orange in a north-facing room. Take it home on approval if you possibly can, and look at it at both ends of the day.
The five questions to ask alongside
Where was it woven — a region, not a country. Roughly when, and on what evidence. What are the pile and foundation fibres. Natural or synthetic dye, and how do they know. What restoration has it had.
Every answer is checkable against the rug using the tests above. Part of the point is the information; part is watching how the answers are given — the rug buying guide.
Then, and only then
Discuss price, against comparable sales rather than against a discount — rug prices. And get the description written on the invoice.
What should stop you entirely is in red flags.
Common questions
What should I check first when buying a rug?
The back. It tells you the construction — hand-knotted, tufted or machine-made — which is the single most consequential fact about the rug and the one most often left unstated. Everything else follows from it.
Can I inspect a rug properly without expertise?
Most of it, yes. Construction, fibre, dye stability, pile depth and restoration are all readable with your hands and a damp white cloth. What needs expertise is attribution and dating, which is why an independent appraisal is worth paying for on anything substantial.