Demand is at the highest level for 30 years, says Claremont’s president, Jan David Winitz.

“We have nearly three dozen waiting lists for clients who are seeking rugs to add to their art collections and who are telling us that they are buying them as they move away from other investments,” Winitz said.

As mainstream markets have struggled and investors have fretted about threats such as inflation down the line, collectables such as paintings, classic cars, stamps, jewellery and sculpture are attracting attention. However, to make consistent returns from collectables requires the investor to put in considerable study into a sector, or hire an expert to do so.

Winitz said that in the 90 days since he had unveiled a 175-rug collection, the gallery had sold nearly 80 per cent of the pieces. The carpets range in value from $20,000 to $500,000 per piece.

“Normally, it would take almost a year to sell that percentage of a major collection.  But frankly our clients are reflecting what is going on at the high end of investing and art collecting,” he said.

There does not appear to be an index of prices for such rare rugs; in the collectibles market, indices of prices have started to develop, enabling the market to become more liquid and helping investors judge the merits of such items against mainstream markets. Examples include the Mei-Moses Fine Art Index, and the Stanley Gibbons 100 Stamp Index of the most frequently traded stamps in the world.