Posted by Pat Weiler on March 13, 1999 at 09:44:06:
In Reply to: Re: Would you buy a rug on the Internet? posted by Bob Alimi on March 11, 1999 at 19:17:31:
: Well, Sacramento *does* have rug shops. There are 3 within 2 miles of my house, and probably a total of 6 or 7 in the metro area. The problem is that not a *single* shop has any interest is stocking rugs of a collectable nature. It is a purely decorative market in this town! So I try and take advantage of occasional trips to the Bay area.
: I'm a novice collector. I have 5 pieces I really like, and own at least as many mistakes. I've found the 'net to be a valuable supplement to my growing collection of rug books. I spend a fair amount of time lurking at TurkoTek and am fairly addicted to watching rug offerings on eBay. I've purchased a few eBay rugs. I tend to think it's fairly unusual that real bargains can be had on eBay. A great many sellers either don't have the ability (or possibly in a few cases, the desire) to accurately describe a rug's condition. There are some good sellers though. Obviously, the trust issue takes on great significance when you're buying a rug based on one or two jpg images and a paragraph of descriptive text. But I suppose people phone in bids to Sotheby's based on what they see in an auction catalog. If you trust the source...
: As to how folks get addicted to rugs, perhaps that might be a topic of a future Turkotek salon. Not so much a salon for debate and discussion, but simply one where the Turkotek regulars can describe just how they got caught up in the world of weavings. I think it'd make interesting reading!
: -Bob
Bob:
I should have qualified my remark about the dearth of rug stores in large-but-not-metropolitan cities. You are very correct. There are rug stores everywhere there are fleas, probably. (I hope I am not offending the flea loving community) Collectible antique rugs are not well represented, though. I consider the "rarity" of good rugs one of the challenges of finding and collecting them. Everybody has baseball cards and I can't afford 19th century impressionist paintings :-(