You don't need to be an expert to tell a hand-knotted rug from a machine-made one. Five checks are enough in most cases.
1. Turn the rug over
On a hand-knotted rug, the pattern is as sharp on the back as on the front: every knot is visible and you can read the design. On a machine-made rug, the back is often blurred, or covered with a coating, a mesh or a glued backing.
2. Look at the knots
Hand-knotted, the knots are slightly irregular: the density varies a little, the lines are never perfectly straight. A machine-made rug is perfectly regular, almost printed.
3. Examine the fringes
On a hand-knotted rug, the fringes are the continuation of the warp: they come out of the rug, they are not sewn on. A separate fringe stitched to the edge usually points to machine manufacture.
4. Check the selvedges
The side edges of a hand-knotted rug are overcast by hand, sometimes a little unevenly. On a machine-made rug, the selvedge is often just a regular seam.
5. Look for small imperfections
A slight shift in a motif, a colour that changes shade in the middle of a field (abrash, caused by a new dye bath): these are signatures of the hand, not defects.
What it changes
A hand-knotted rug can be repaired, can be wet-washed, and keeps or gains value over time. A machine-made rug can be cleaned too, but can't be restored the same way and doesn't have the same resale value. If in doubt, a photo of the front and a photo of the back are enough for us to give you an answer.