Impossible Odds - On Steroids

[Chuck Wagner Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Chuck Wagner]

Greetings all,

Borrowing a thread title from Joe seems applicable for this one.

Many of us collect bags and bag faces; we have dozens.

Back in 2011 I was able to acquire this rather unusual bag face, which I assume to be Baluch but with a large florals-in-a-diamond motif I hadn't seen before on Baluch work. We discussed it here at the time, with no one having any concrete ideas on alternative attributions, or having seen that particular motif before.

This is it:







Now, fast-forward to 2025, fourteen years later.

And what do I find out there on the web (and now, resting peacefully in my rug bunker ??:







You tell me. What are the odds, of finding the other half of this bag (or any bag, for that matter) ??

Regards
Chuck

[Joe Lawrence Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Joe Lawrence]

Wow!! I’d say it’s the equivalent of Ed McMahon showing up at your door with Elvis, DB Cooper and Big Foot to say you just won the Clearing House Sweepstakes.

Incredible story!

[Steve Price Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Steve Price]

One of the old timers (I don't recall which one anymore) said that the number of rugs in the hands of the public is actually fairly small, and they sort of circulate over the years. There's probably a germ of truth in that. For every khorjin face you've had, the other face belongs to another collector.

Steve Price

[Guest Close Guest]

There is some truth to that Steve. I always consider fires, natural disasters, war, rotting, being thrown out, etc as a culprit of pieces that are never to be found again.

[Joe Lawrence Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Joe Lawrence]

That reminds me of a story by Peter Pap and the Antiques Roadshow show. He was a guest appraiser. One lady brought in a piece she thought was old and it was a rug. That was the extent of her knowledge. She pulled it out of the trash/dumpster pile at an estate sale if I recall. It turned out to be one of 10 known Tekke Asmaliks known to exist. It went to auction with the help of Peter and sold for $180,000. You can find his interview on YouTube.

Another story. My mentor was studying a rich friends family rugs in Hamburg around 1979. He often visited and was studying a white rug used near the front door. One day he shows up and the rug was not there. When asked about the rug, his friends high maintenance mother said she threw it out because it had stains on it. The stains were actual extremely rare and old Chinese symbols. The rug was extremely old and at the time was worth more than 1 million Deutsch Marks. A little over $500,000 USD at the time.