Everything on the label, checkable by you

What we certify

Every carpet ships with a signed certificate recording:

• The weaver’s name and the workshop’s town.
• Knot density, counted by hand, in knots per square inch.
• Materials — pile, warp and weft, stated separately.
• Dye type, natural or synthetic, with no implication that either is superior.
• Dimensions, measured at three points per side, because a hand-woven carpet is never perfectly rectangular.
• Year of completion and months on the loom.

Check it yourself

None of the following requires equipment or expertise, and all of it works on any carpet in any shop.

Is it hand-knotted?

Turn it over. On a hand-knotted carpet the design is as legible from the back as from the front, at the same resolution and in the same colours, because the knots are the image. A machine-made rug has a blurred or blank reverse. A tufted rug has fabric glued over the back — and there is exactly one reason to hide the back of a rug.

Then check the fringe. On a hand-knotted piece it is the warp threads themselves emerging from the body. If it is a separate strip sewn on, the rug is not hand-knotted.

Is the knot count honest?

Measure one inch across the back and count the knots — each is a small node over two warp threads. Do the same vertically. Multiply. That is the figure on our certificate, and you can do it in thirty seconds without asking anyone’s permission.

Or use the zoom on any carpet’s page, which renders the weave at that piece’s true density.

Are the dyes what we say?

Natural dye fades towards a related colour — madder red drifts to terracotta, indigo to a dusty mid-blue — so an older naturally dyed carpet looks harmonious rather than washed out. It usually shows abrash: faint bands where one dye lot ended and the next began. Dealers once hid abrash. It is a signature of hand-dyed, hand-woven work, and a carpet with none at all invites the question.

If we are wrong

Take any carpet you buy from us to an independent appraiser. If their assessment contradicts our certificate on any material point — hand- knotted or not, knot count materially overstated, materials or dye type misdescribed — we refund you in full, pay the appraisal fee, and collect the carpet ourselves. There is no time limit on this.

We can offer that because we buy at the loom rather than through a chain of intermediaries. We are not repeating a claim somebody made to us; we watched it being woven.

What we do not claim

We do not describe carpets as investments. Some appreciate, many do not, and anyone telling you a new carpet is a reliable financial asset is selling something. Buy it because you want to live with it.

We do not sell antiques as new or new as antique. Where a piece is modern, the certificate says so and gives the year it came off the loom.