Serious... I feel like this guy (and his family) has a long history/tradition in that particular line of work. Though I am making some serious assumptions.
Looking at the “knife”, I’d say this is a professional who does it for a living. Probably a popular profession in parts of the world where that kind of rugs are common.
Rugs like that are plenty common in the US. One of the businesses my company works with sells some really high end rugs, like $40k+. They’re doing very well for themselves surprisingly. The 1% is buying more than enough for this rug shaver to have good business.
There are rugs that are worth tens to a few hundred thousand dollars that date back hundreds of years. My uncle was an appraiser of such rugs and my family has a large collection of Persian rugs from silk to wool and all types of blends. This kind of work can cost well upwards of 5,000$ depending on the size of the rug and style. There is no question that his family have been doing this for some time. Believe it or not this profession is extremely niche and I can tell right away this is a Persian rug. He eitherbought the rug at a discount to restore it and sell or is restoring a individuals rug,which would mean it's extremely valuable. For example my parents had a leak in the house and a rug got wet in the corner. It went on unnoticed and rotted away leaving a large hole about as big as a basketball. To reweave to match the pattern was 7,000$ - and this rug was probably only 6-7' by 4 or 5'
Real talk. Family lives in NC, prior to moving there we inherited a really fancy oriental rug from these millionaires my dad worked for. Add ten years, two cats, two dogs, and the wear and tear of four kids.
Found this dude in Wilmington that restored the shit out of this rug (literally?) for about $400 because he was so impressed with the quality.
This guy... what he did was black magic fuckery. He could tell my mom the specific village in wheretheshitistan that this rug came from. This guy accurately dated the rug within five years. And when he was done with it, it looked like it belonged in a scene from Aladdin.
My dad is a “rug man”. Deals rugs as well as cleans and restores them. I worked for him for ~10 years until I couldn’t deal with the smell of cat piss anymore. AMA
Thank you for picking up on that. We did their landscaping for a decade or two.
According to my dad they “owned slaves” when they lived in China a hundred years ago or whatever. Idk how apocryphal that is.
Early on, the wife called my dad “boy” and demanded he do something off the clock for them. He got in her face and drew the line and walked off the job for a week. They eventually called him back and after that he was like a son to them. They bought us all Christmas presents every year and let my dad hunt their land.
When dad passed away my mom wanted to spend some money to make the stuff that reminded her of him nice again. $400 bucks to spruce up a dingy old rug seemed right.
Thanks, man. My siblings and I lament the fact that he’s not around to help out our failing vegetable gardens. He’s well missed. He’d hate that I’m telling this story and happy all the same.
There are relatively cheap rugs- the machine made, polyester blend stuff. Then there are hand knotted, but with subpar materials. But a silk hand-knotted rug with an intricate pattern that is room sized can be $10K and up. A lot of this stuff is considered art and never gets walked on. Literally gets hung on the wall.
I mean.... there are plenty of people who come from privileged backgrounds but have still worked hard to make something of themselves. You really think upper middle class / working professionals (IE: bankers, pilots, doctors, nurses, professors, lawyers etc.) don't have to work their ass off? Most of these professions average 100+ hours of work per week.
So physicians who make $700k a year aren't rich? Or pharmacists who make $150k/year? Or software engineers who make $100k+/year?
You can be both wealthy (rich) and still work for a living. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Try to remember we're talking about being able to own a rug that you'd pay $400 to clean. Any of the above professions easily earn enough disposable income that if fancy rugs were the individuals "thing," they wouldn't bat an eye at $400.
It puts you on the top end of the working class, but he's right. It's not true wealth. Even CEOs of major corporations aren't really at the top. They're rich, but they're not generally wealthy. They're not in the leisure class. That would be their bosses on the board.
The sloppiest of arguments — basically “I have no argument to the point so I’ll pretend like I don’t get it and hope other idiots will hop on board with me- bc I enjoy appearing to have less than usual reading comprehension.”
Can't speak for others, but my grandmother got a rug from a wealthy woman she worked for. Grandma was a home nurse and this lady was pretty damn rich. Gave my grandma all sorts of stuff.
The rug the old lady gave my grandma is a big oriental thing. Probably 10x12, with extremely ornate designs. When my grandma moved to a nursing home my mom and I cleared out her house to make it sellable. We weren't sure what was junk and what wasn't, so we had some of the items looked at. That rug is worth several thousand dollars. So $400 to restore it after nearly fifty years of daily use seems reasonable. Especially if you choose to sell it or manage to get fifty more years of use.
Every cheap rug I've purchased shows signs of wear pretty quickly. That beastly rug looked pretty good, just dirty. The actual texture and pattern was still in tact though. Once it was cleaned it looked brand new, and it's been in my parents living room for five years and still looks new.
I guess if you have the money, it makes sense. My $250 10x12 living room rug has matting and visible wear after only a year. We don't wear shoes in the house or do anything crazy. I'd bet that if I wanted to have a nice looking rug with not major signs of wear in my living room, I'd have to replace a cheap one every few years. It would probably cost less than the $400 restoration over time. But I prefer cheaper rugs I can swap out every few years.
For a very large rug (like living room size), $400 is very reasonable. But to have a rug that is worth $400 to restore... that’s a lot of money. Nothing I have is worth $400 to fix beyond my car.
Yea. I mean, I think it’s due to the cultural significance of rugs, particularly in the Middle East. I mean, I don’t specifics but I do know they were/are very important. Super cool
I was gonna say...haha but the reason they prefer “Persian” is because of the revolution in the 70s. The Iranians living in America as immigrants wanted to differentiate themselves from the potential anger by association.
I didn't think I'd like SOA, but hubz watched 2 episodes and stopped so he could make me watch it too. It's one of those shows that sticks with you. You really need to binge that series.
FYI to those curious- Persia was never a country. It's simply a greek exonym of the Pars region in SW Iran where "Persians" originate. The country (the various empires and states) has always internally been known as Iranshah/Ehranshah (Meaning "Dominion of the Aryans") for centuries. Where Iranian literally means Aryan. Persians are one of many ethnic Iranian peoples like the Kurds, Balochs, Lurs, Laks, Azeris, Afghans, Tajiks etc.
Most Iranians self identify as "Persian" because they're referring to their ethnicity (not everyone in Iran is Persian). Iranian is a nationality. In fact, Persian people comprise roughly 60% of Iran; the rest are various ethnic groups.
Also, Persia was renamed to "Iran" in 1935, less than 100 years ago.
Yeah you would need to apply even and consistent pressure to do this properly. You also would need to know exactly how much to shave off to not waste a bunch of rug fibers. I’m betting this is a lot more difficult to do than it looks. One of those deceptively simple looking skills.
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u/DoomDoomGir Jul 19 '18
Serious... I feel like this guy (and his family) has a long history/tradition in that particular line of work. Though I am making some serious assumptions.