ORIENTAL RUGS ZINE  Editor’s Index EDITOR’S CORNER Sept/Oct 2000   If an 18th Century Holbein Variant isn't collectible, what is? Readers, we need your help. Jack C. was in my shop this month, politely asking the regular question of all rug collectors and old-rug dealers: Do you have anything good? I know from past experience that this is a trick question. If I remain quiet I have no chance of selling anything. If I offer a rug I think is worthy, I open my rug for certain rejection. But this time I knew of an 18th century Holbein variant likely to come up soon, a piece I had seen and admired on the living room floor of an ancient granddaughter of a gentleman who had collected the rug in the misty past. Jack didn't want to hear about the rug. An 18th century rug- it's not old enough, he said. It's decorative. Here's the question, a serious question and not at all rhetorical. If a very attractive 18th century Turkish rug is not collectible, what is? Because Jack is not alone in being outrageously picky. Dealers and collectors turn up their noses at pieces whose equals I have seen only once or twice, if at all, during a 30 year career in oriental rugs. Perhaps they've got it right. Maybe they are what we call sophisticated. Or maybe they have managed to position their collecting so that they won't ever again actually have to buy anything, since rugs old enough to collect don't exist or are prohibitively expensive. I need your help, fellow collectors and/or rug dealers. Please tell us what you believe to be  collectible in this, the 21st century. Tell us what you believe should be collectible. What is your personal philosophy of collecting? Why do you collect rugs. Or have you quit collecting? How do you account for what collecting is today? Do rug dealers help or hinder your collecting? Are the new rugs with natural dyes collectible? Or is Chris Alexander right in believing rugs just haven't been quite up to snuff since the 14th century?  Write your thoughts please and we will post them here in a kind of symposium on rug collecting. Transferring your thoughts to paper may help you become clearer on what your collecting means to you. Come on folks, sharpen  your pencils. Send along photos from your collection if you can manage it.  Editor’s Index Ed.      Oriental Rug Zine is brought to you by Emmett Eiland's Oriental Rugs, a trusted San Francisco bay area oriental rug and oriental carpet dealer since 1969.