Professional repairs to moth damaged rug

When we moved into our house around 25 years ago, we had a good quality woollen carpet fitted in our sitting room. It was scotch guarded and I have kept it clean and hoovered it regularly but while we on holiday last autumn it succumbed to a local plague of wool eating carpet months which have proved impossible to eradicate, so it has come to the end of its useful life and has to go. We are going to replace it with floor boards, put a large rug on top.

On top of our fitted carpet until recently was a vintage woollen Turkish rug, a large one, which we bought on holiday around 25 years ago in the middle of nowhere in central Turkey. It is a Turkman Bokhara rug, hand knotted and hand dyed. This is not fitted and I have kept the moths at bay by having it out in the open where we walk on it and hoovering and spraying it regularly.

However while we were away in the autumn, it seems like some of the moths got in around the edges of the carpet where it was under the sofa.

Also I have a small Afghan rug, bought around 40 years ago, from my local department store when it was one of the first "war rugs" to come into the UK and very good quality, very subtle images, nothing like the recent cheap copies from Pakistan. It looked OK until I pulled it out from under the corner of a book case and saw the moths had started on that too.

Anyway I am attached to both for sentimental reasons to both rugs and decided to get professional estimates to clean them and moth proof them and at the same time asked about repair options. I was shocked at the costs of repair and in particular the costs to repair the small Afghan rug, which were nearly double that of the large Bokhara.

I said that I could replace them for less as there is not much interest in oriental carpets these days. The carpet repairs firm (apparently also used by the National Trust) assured me I could not. They said the Bokhara was a genuine vintage carpet of very high quality, finding them of such quality hand knotted and dyed was increasingly rare and the prices were rising. But it was the Afghan war rug which was the surprise.

The carpet firm said this was an absolutely outstanding rug of the highest quality not to be compared with recent cheap copies from Pakistan and should definitely be repaired. They said they had matched the colours and wool and silk used and were keen to do it because it was such an outstanding rug it should be conserved.

They quoted a resale value of 3x the cost of the repairs as it has so many knots to the inch and is so well made and is a really skilled job. They said it would easily fetch this estimate, if sold, probably more. They had been excited to see it. They have offered to give me professional valuations of this amount for my insurance.

I am struggling to understand why it is worth repairing an old moth eaten rug and not just buying a replacement as there are plenty of antique rugs about. What do you think? Does anyone out there know about oriental carpets?