And, if you aren't doing it as a business, the rugs you buy and sell are of no more interest to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service than the sofa you sold at a yard sale. Let's look at the realities. I'll ignore the windfalls that are encountered now and then because they are really rare and, while they can lead to terrific percentage profits, they aren't likely to happen to any of us very often. The most common sources of rugs, for most of us, are likely to be dealers. Indeed, the usual sources of the advice to buy for investment are dealers and itinerant auctioneers.
Most dealers are hard working, knowledgeable, honest business people.
But some do play on their customers' greed. The fact is, the buyer generally can expect to buy retail and sell wholesale. A fair retail price is typically around twice the wholesale price. This means that when he wants to sell that rug, he must sell it at wholesale if he can find a dealer or private buyer who will take it for that. Even in today's exuberant stock market, that would be a sucker bet.