Iranian Carpet shops

You cannot buy a rug from a photograph. Buying one is a visit: you turn up, you sit down, tea appears, and the dealer unrolls rug after rug until the floor is covered. That pile on the floor is how the trade works and is not by itself a hard sell. What decides the purchase in that hour is what you do with your own hands and eyes.

Call before you drive across town, too. A shop whose stockroom is mostly kilims and a shop dealing in finely knotted pieces sit in the same list here, undivided, so ask what they have in stock and in which sizes.

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Verified says one thing only: a real person stands behind this profile and manages it themselves. YabInfy does not check anyone's certificates, licences, experience or competence, and the badge is not for sale.

The back of the rug is where the answers are

A dealer who knows the trade expects you to turn a rug over and will lift the corner of a big one for you. From the front the pile makes everything look soft and much the same; from the back a rug hides nothing.

• Density and evenness: lay two rugs back to back and count the knots across a few centimetres of each. Whatever number is on the label gets settled here.
• Sharpness of the drawing: from the back, diagonals and curves are either continuous or visibly stepped, a difference the pile smooths away on the front.
• Old repairs: good reweaving is almost invisible from the front and gives itself away from the back, as a patch of different knotting, wool in a slightly different tone, or a line of stitching. Not a fault, but it belongs in the price and on the invoice.
• Light through the weave: hold the rug against a window and worn areas and moth holes show as bright points.

What knot count buys, and why a bigger number is not a better rug

Knot density is knots per unit of area. The Iranian trade counts it in raj and German labels usually give knots per square metre, so two numbers mean nothing side by side until you know which unit each uses.

• Density buys detail that is otherwise impossible: soft curves, a small medallion, script, a face. Geometric and tribal designs do not need it, and pushing the count up on that kind of drawing adds nothing. The number says how fine the drawing can be, not how good the rug is, and it cannot make up for poor wool or poor dye.
• A finely knotted rug also uses thinner yarn and a shorter pile. In a living room with children, a dog and chairs being dragged about, a coarser weave in good wool is the wiser buy.

Judging wool with the flat of your hand

• Run your hand over the pile, with the nap and then against it. Good wool feels faintly greasy and springs back; dry, papery or squeaky wool is not a good sign. That greasiness is the wool's own lanolin, and it is what keeps a spill sitting on the surface a while longer.
• Press with your thumb and let go: pile that keeps the fingerprint will keep the mark of a sofa leg. A new hand-knotted rug also sheds a little for the first months, which is normal; handfuls are not.
• Nap direction: every rug looks lighter from one end than the other, so look from both ends before you choose.

Natural dye, synthetic dye, and abrash, which is not a fault

If one thing is going to make you reject a good rug for the wrong reason, it is this. Abrash is a gentle band of shifting shade within a single colour, usually running across the width. Hand dyeing happens in small pots, no two come out exactly alike, and when the yarn from one runs out the weaver carries on with the next. It is evidence of hand dyeing, not of sun damage.

• Telling it from fading: abrash runs edge to edge and appears in the same place on the back. Sun fading affects only the part that was exposed and leaves the back untouched.
• Natural against synthetic: a synthetic dye is not a defect in itself and good modern dyes are stable. What matters is fastness, not whether the colour came from a plant or a factory.
• Part the pile at the base of the fibre: a slightly deeper tone down there is normal, while a sharp difference can mean a heavy chemical finish or local retouching. Ask what has been done to the rug.

Silk: a common claim that belongs on the invoice

Silk lifts a price further than any other claim, which is why it is made more often than any other claim. Keep three things apart: an all-silk rug, a wool rug with silk only in the flowers or the border, and a rug whose sheen comes from mercerised cotton or viscose. The internet will tell you to burn a fibre and smell it. Do not do that in someone's shop: it damages their goods and all you get is one ambiguous smell. Ask instead for a line on the invoice saying what the pile is, in words, because a claim made out loud and never written down does not exist afterwards.

Kilim and gabbeh are not cheaper carpets, they are different objects

• A kilim has no pile at all. It is warp and weft, the weave itself makes the design, and it is thin, light and the same on both faces. Judge it by the evenness of the weave, how tightly the weft is beaten down, and whether the edges run straight.
• A gabbeh is knotted, but sparsely, with a long pile, coarse hardy wool, simple shapes and few colours. It was made for a floor and copes with traffic and children.
• Both need their own yardstick: a kilim has no knot to count and a gabbeh is deliberately sparse. Cheaper is not a rule either, and a good old kilim can cost more than a new knotted rug.

New, semi-antique, antique, and what a washed finish means

Those are trade words, not legal definitions, and dealers draw the lines slightly differently. Rather than argue about the word, ask what period they are claiming and have that written down. An antique finish, often just called a wash, is a separate matter: a chemical treatment on a new rug to knock the fresh colours back and give the surface a mellow, aged look. It is established and not bad in itself, but it should be disclosed, because such a rug is younger than one that aged on a floor and its wool has given something up.

Haggling, and what you are actually negotiating for

The first number is usually not the last in this trade, though some shops price firmly and do not enjoy being pushed. Do not haggle over a rug you do not want: narrow the choice to one or two first. The discount is not the only movable part either, since delivery, an underlay and a future wash are settled at the same table.

• The real test: ask for the origin, the material and the measured size to be written on the invoice, and watch what happens. A price that only survives as long as nothing is written down has told you what you needed to know.
• Never trade the invoice for a discount. What belongs on that piece of paper is set out on the carpets overview page.

Getting it home: underlay and underfloor heating

• Loan and delivery: mark the size you want on your own floor with tape before you go, then ask how many days you may keep a rug on approval, what happens if it is damaged while with you, and what delivery and the stairs will cost.
• Underlay: on a hard floor it stops the rug travelling and stops grit grinding between its back and the boards. Fitted carpet needs a different, gripping type. Ask for something thin and breathable rather than thick foam.
• Underfloor heating: wool copes with a warm floor and a hand-knotted rug is usually fine over one. What decides it is the combined thermal resistance of rug plus underlay, and the permitted ceiling is stated by your floor manufacturer and heating installer, not by the dealer. It is usually a thick or rubber-backed underlay that breaks it.

Settle these before you pay

• The invoice: everything you were told out loud, written down, the origin claim and the material above all. A half-filled sheet is worth nothing later.
• Return or exchange: whether they take a rug back at all, within how many days, money back or credit, and whether it has to come back unlaid. Get that onto the same sheet.
• Exchange later: dealers here often take a rug back against part of the price of a dearer one. If they offer it, ask at what value and for how long.
• Afterwards: whether they wash and repair in house or hand the work to a workshop.
• YabInfy checks none of this, so ask for it yourself, and ask to see the document where it matters.

Choosing a shop from this list

No two pieces of stock are alike here, so ranking shops on price alone does not mean much. Read the reviews for what a buyer can testify to: whether anyone was leaned on in the room, whether what was said out loud later appeared on the invoice, and what happened when someone wanted to bring a rug back. Two notes on privacy: no dealer here sees who opened their profile or asked for their number, and a review you write is public text under whatever name you choose.

If you already own the rug and want it washed or rewoven, carpet cleaning is a list of its own. The rules this directory runs on are in the FAQ, and if you sell carpets yourself, add your business.