How to tell if a rug is handmade

1. Look at the back

On a hand-knotted rug the back mirrors the front: the same design, just a little less crisp, made of tiny individual knots. Rows wander slightly and some knots sit a little higher or lower than their neighbors.

A machine-made rug also shows the design on the back, but the grid is perfectly even and often stiff, with a coating of latex or a strip of synthetic backing. If the back is covered by cloth or felt, it is almost certainly hand-tufted.

2. Check the fringe

On a hand-knotted or flat-woven rug the fringe is the end of the warp: the long threads that run the whole length of the rug and hold every knot. Fold the rug back near the fringe and you can see the fringe threads disappear into the weave.

If the fringe is a separate strip sewn or glued onto the end, the rug was almost always made by machine or tufted.

3. Look at the sides

Handmade rugs have sides wrapped by hand in wool or cotton, a little uneven along their length. Machine-made rugs usually have a perfectly straight, machine-stitched edge called serging.

4. Small flaws are a good sign

A rug made by a person at a loom is never perfectly regular. The sides may not be exactly parallel, the design may shift slightly from one end to the other, and the color may change in bands where a new batch of hand-dyed wool was used. That color change is called abrash and is valued by collectors.

5. Count the knots

Turn a corner over and count the knots in one inch across and one inch down, then multiply. Most village and tribal rugs have 60 to 150 knots per square inch. Fine city rugs can pass 300. The more knots, the finer the detail and the more work went into the rug.

6. Feel the pile and the weight

Hand-knotted wool rugs feel dense and heavy for their size and fold softly. Many machine-made rugs use synthetic fibers that feel slick or plastic and spring back stiffly. Rubbing the pile between your fingers tells you a lot: wool feels slightly dry and springy, polypropylene feels smooth and waxy.

7. Flat-woven rugs are a separate case

Kilims and soumaks are woven flat, without knots or pile, so they are thin and often reversible. They are handmade too, and show the same small irregularities in the edges and design as knotted rugs.

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