Ali Baba or a Li Ba Ba?
There's a good story in today's FT about the Chinese trade of faking Persian carpets. Pakistani rug dealers are outraged that their clients are spending several thousand dollars on Iranian silk carpets which turn out to be Chinese-woven counterfeits. Dealers claim the only way to spot a fake is that it will be sold at around a third to half the price of what one would pay for the genuine article. A Chinese copy of a Turkish Hereke carpet was sold recently at an auction in Turkey and went for six times its estimate of $1000 but whether that was to a dealer to be resold or simply to a happy home, it does not say. caveat emptor.
posted by Whispering Walls at 8:11 am
4 Comments:
I'll stick to the fake Bangkok Rolex. Nothing like it. Falls to pieces on the kitchen table, is put back together again and away we go for another couple of days.
If you go to Tbilisi, you will find there carpets from every place on earth. Tbilisi was on the "Silk Road" and continues to trade substantially in the items that were traded hundreds of years ago. The Communists dirupted it a bit, but the finest carpets can be bought for a fraction of their Western prices.
Bravo ED!
Sounds like a real Ali Baba treasure trove, KL
If the fakes are as good as that, I'll look for one!
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