vindje.com / Guides / Furniture
Second-hand rugs are great value if you buy wool and avoid the two big problems: moths and rotting latex backing. Flip the rug over before anything else. The back tells you how it was made, what it is worth and whether it will last.
Vloerkleed is the general word, tapijt is also used for rugs as well as wall-to-wall carpet. For handmade rugs, sellers write Perzisch tapijt, Oosters tapijt, handgeknoopt (hand-knotted) or name a type: Berber, kelim (flat-woven, no pile), Gabbeh, Heriz, Kazak. Wollen vloerkleed finds wool rugs of all kinds.
Many good rugs are listed by people clearing out a parent's house with titles like oud tapijt or groot kleed. Those can be the best buys because nobody looked closely at them.
On a hand-knotted rug the pattern on the back is a clear, slightly less sharp copy of the front, with tiny individual knots you can see. The fringes are the ends of the warp threads and run through the whole rug.
A hand-tufted rug has a canvas or fabric backing glued over the back, often with a stiff layer of latex under it. You will not see the pattern. A machine-made rug shows a very regular grid on the back and its fringes are often sewn on as a separate strip. Tufted and machine-made rugs can be nice, but they are worth much less used.
Unroll the rug fully, ideally outside or in a well lit room, and go over it slowly.
Vacuum both sides first, then hang it or lay it pile down and beat the back to get grit out. For wool, do not soak it in a bathtub with regular detergent. A professional rug washer is the safe choice for anything valuable, and they usually charge per square metre, with prices that make sense for a good wool rug but not for a cheap synthetic one.
For moths, a professional wash kills larvae and eggs. Freezing small rugs for a few days in a sealed bag works too. Bring anything that might have moths home in a bag and keep it away from your other rugs and wool clothes until it is treated.
Most used Persian style rugs in Dutch homes are ordinary decorative pieces, not antiques. A hand-knotted rug in good condition is a solid buy at a few hundred euro but rarely a hidden treasure. Machine-made rugs with Persian patterns are common and should be cheap.
If you know what you want, for example a wool rug of at least 200 by 300 cm with low pile in muted colours, a search on vindje.com can read the descriptions for size and material instead of only matching the word vloerkleed.
| Item | Typical asking price |
|---|---|
| Machine-made synthetic rug, 160x230 | EUR 10-50 |
| Hand-tufted wool rug, 200x300 | EUR 50-200 |
| Kelim, flat-woven, medium size | EUR 50-250 |
| Hand-knotted Persian style rug, 200x300, good condition | EUR 150-700 |
| Vintage Berber or Beni Ouarain style rug | EUR 150-600 |
Rough Marktplaats asking prices in the Netherlands. Condition, age and season move them a lot.
Describe what you want in your own words and vindje.com searches Marktplaats in Dutch, then reads every listing and keeps only the real matches. For example:
Wool rug at least 200x300 cm, hand-knotted or kelim, muted colours, no moth damage, under 300 euro, within 30 kmSearch Marktplaats like this
Turn it over. A hand-knotted rug shows the pattern on the back with visible individual knots, and the fringes are part of the rug rather than sewn on.
Look for bare patches where the pile is eaten away, tiny white casings and sandy debris, especially near the edges and under furniture spots. Moth damage is often worse on the back side.
Small wool rugs can be cleaned carefully with cold water and a wool detergent, then dried flat quickly. Larger or valuable rugs are better sent to a professional rug washer.
That is degraded latex on a tufted rug. It cannot be repaired and will keep shedding powder, so these rugs are usually not worth buying.