Things to Buy...

Alabaster...

A translucent, fine - grained variety of either gypsum or calcite, alabaster is pretty because of its grain and colour, and because light passes through it. You'll see ashtrays, vases, chess sets, bowls, egg cups, even the eggs themselves carved from the stone. Cappadocia is a major producing and carving area, and towns like Urgüp and Avanos specialise in it. But in fact you will find it wherever good souvenirs are sold.

Antiques...

Türkiye harbours a lot of fascinating stuff left over from the empire: vigorous peasant jewellery, water - pipe mouthpieces carved from amber, old Korans and illuminated manuscripts, Greek and Roman figunes and coins, tacky furniture in the Ottoman Baroque style. However, it is illegal to buy, sell, possess or export any antiquity, and you can go to prison for breaking the law. All antiquities must be turned over to a museum immediately upon discovery. You may be offered Greek and Roman coins and figurines for sale. Refuse at once. Items only a century or two old are not usually classed as antiquities, though, and only true antiquities are off limits, not the many artful fakes.

Carpets & Kilims...

Türkiye has lots of marvellous carpets and kilims, sometimes at good prices. However, with the flood of tourists, dealers sometimes lose sight of reality and charge prices higher than you'd pay to a reputable dealer at home. They may also offer you inferior goods. Unless you're willing to research prices, patterns, dyes, knots - per - square - cm and so forth, you'll buy what you like for a price that seems reasonable. But please learn at least the basics of carpet - buying before you put your money down. The very basic examination of a carpet, so that you can look like you know what you're doing, involves the following procedures. Turn a comer over and look at the closeness of the weave. Ask, "How many knots per square cm ?" The tighter the weave, the smaller the knots, the higher the quality and durability. Compare the colours on the back with the colours on the front. Spread the nap with your fingers and look to the bottom of the carpet's pile. Are the colours more vivid there than on the surface ? If so, the surface has faded in the sun considerably. Take a white handkerchief, wet it a bit, and rub iton the top surface of the carpet. Is there colour on the handkerchief ? There shouldn't be; if there is, the carpet's dyes are runny.

Check the ends of the warp (lengthwise) cords: are they of wool ("yün") as they should be, or cotton ("pamuk"), which is weaker and inferior ? The pile should definitely be of wool; in fact, a good - quality, long - lasting carpet is 100 % wool ("yüzde yüz yün"). If the pile is of cotton or "flosh" (mercerised cotton), sometimes misleadingly called "floss silk", then the carpet will wear badly and be of little value in a few years. (A real silk carpet, by the way, even a small one, will cost thousands of dollars.) Look at the carpet from one end, then from the other; the colours will be different because the pile always leans one way or the other. Take the carpet out into the sunlight and look at it there.

That's about all you can do without becoming a rug expert. If you don't trust the dealer's sworn oath that the rug is all wool, and you're serious about buying, ask him to clip a bit of the tassel and burn it for you - that is if you can , differentiate between the odours of burning silk, wool, cotton or nylon. Carpet prices are determined by demand, age, material, quality, condition, enthusiasm of the buyer and debt load of the seller. New carpets can be skilfully "antiquated"; damaged or worn carpets can be rewoven (good work, but expensive), patched or even painted. Worn carpets look fairly good until the magic paint washes out. Give the carpet a good going - over, decide if you think it's a good price, and go from there. The method of payment can be a bargaining point, or a point of contention. Some dealers will take personal cheques, but all prefer cashor travellers' cheques. If you pay with a credit card, the dealer may require you to pay the fee credit card company will charge him, and even the cost of the phone call or telex to check on your credit. If he doesn't require you to pay these charges, it means that you've paid a hefty enough price so that another 6 % to 8 % doesn't bother him. If all this seems too much trouble, be advised: it isn't. A good wool Turkish carpet will easily outlast the human body of its owner, and become an heirloom.

Ceramics...

The best Turkish ceramics were made in Iznik in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. Iznik tiles from the , great days are now museum - pieces, found in museums throughout the world. Today most of the tile - making is done in Kütahya, a pleasant town with few other redeeming qualities for the tourist. For the very best ceramics, you must go there. Souvenir shops will also have attractive, hand - made tiles, plates, cups and bowls. They're not really high - fired so they're vulnerable to breaks and cracks, but they are still attractive. The real, old lznik tiles from the 16^th and 17^th centuries qualify as antiquities and cannot be exported. If you go to lznik, you will find a reviving tile industry on a small scale. Some of the items are quite pretty and reasonably priced.

Copper...

Gleaming copper vessels will greet you in every souvenir shop you peep into. Some are old, sometimes several centuries. Most are handsome, and some are still eminently useful. The new copperware tends to be of lighter gauge; that's one of the ways you tell new from old. But even the new stuff will have been made by hand. "See that old copper water pipe over there ?" my friend Alaettin asked me once. We were sitting in his impossibly cluttered, closet - sized shop on Istanbul's "Cadircilar Caddesi", just outside the Covered Market. "It dates from the time of Sultan Ahmet III (1703 - 1730), and was used by the Sultan himself. I just finished making it yesterday."

Alaettin was a master coppersmith, and had made pieces for many luminaries, including the late Nelson Rockefeller. His pieces might well have graced the sultan's private apartments - except that the sultanate was abolished in 1922. He charged a hefty price for his fine craftwork but not for the story, which was the gift - wrapping, so to speak. Copper vessels should not be used for cooking or eating unless they are tinned inside: that is, washed with molten tin which covers the toxic copper. If you intend to use a copper vessel, make sure the interior layer of tin is intact, or negotiate to have it tinned ("kalaylamak"). If there is a "kalayci" shop nearby, ask about the price of the tinning in advance.

Inlaid Wood...

Cigarette boxes, chess and "tavla" (backgammon) hoards and other items will be inlaid with different coloured woods, silver or mother - of - pearl. It's not the finest work, but it's pretty good. Make sure there is indeed inlay.

Jewellery...

Türkiye is a wonderful place to buy jewellery, especially the antique stuff. None of the items sold here may meet your definition of 'chic', but window - shopping is great fun. Jewellers' Row in any market is a dazzling strip of glittering shop windows filled with gold. Light bulbs, artfully rigged, show it off. In the Covered Market, a blackboard sign hung above "Kuyumcular Caddesi" (Street of the Jewellers) bears the daily price for unworked gold of so - many karats. Serious gold - buyers should check out this price, watch carefully as the jeweller weighs the piece in question, and then calculate what part of the price is for gold and what part for labour. Silver is another matter. There is sterling silver jewellery (look for the hallmark), but nickel silver and pewter - like alloys are much more common. Serious dealers don't try to pass off alloy as silver.

Leather & Suede...

On any given "Kurban Bayrami" (Sacrifice Holiday), over 2,500,000 sheep get the axe in Türkiye. Add to that the normal day - today needs of a cuisine based on mutton and lamb and you have a huge amount of raw material to be made into leather items. Shoes, bags, cushions, jackets, skirts, vests, hats, gloves and trousers are all made from soft leather. This is a big industry in Türkiye, particularly in and around the Grand Bazaar. So much leather clothing is turned out that a good deal of it will be badly cut or carelessly made, but there are lots of fine pieces as well. The only way to assure yourself of a good piece is to examine it carefully, taking time. Try it unjust as carefully; see if the sleeves are full enough, if the buttonholes are positioned well, if the collar rubs. If something is wrong, keep trying others until you find what you want. Made - to - order garments can be excellent or disappointing, as the same tailor who made the ready - made stuff will make the ordered stuff; and will be making it fast because the shopkeeper has already impressed you by saying "No problem. I can have it for you tomorrow". It's better to find something off the rack that fits than to order it, unless you can order without putting down a deposit or committing yourself to buy (this is often possible). Leather items and clothing are standard tourist stuff, found in all major tourist destinations.

Meerschaum...

If you smoke a pipe, you know about meerschaum. For those who don't, meerschaum ("sea foam" in German; "lületasi" in Turkish) is a hydrous magnesium silicate, a soft, white, clay - like material which is very porous but heat - resistant. When carved into a pipe, it smokes cool and sweet. Over time, it absorbs residues from the tobacco and turns a nut - brown colour. Devoted meerschaum pipe smokers even have special gloves with which to hold the pipe as they smoke, so that oil from their fingers won't sully the fine, even patina of the pipe. The world's largest and finest beds of meerschaum are found in Türkiye, near the city of Eskisehir. Artful carving of the soft stone has always been done, and blocks of meerschaum were exported to be carved abroad as well. These days, however, the export of block meerschaum is prohibited because the government realised that exporting uncarved blocks was the same as exporting the jobs to carve them. So any carved pipe will have been carved in Türkiye. Carving is of a very high quality, and you'll marvel at the artistry of the Eskisehir carvers. Pipes portraying turbaned pashas, wizened old men, fair maidens and mythological beasts, as well as many pipes in geometrical designs, will be on view in any souvenir shop. Pipes are not the only things carved from meerschaum these days. Bracelets, necklaces, pendants, earrings and cigarette holders all appear in souvenir shops.

When buying, look for purity and uniformity in the stone. Carving is often used to cover up flaws in a piece of meersehaum; do lookover it carefully. For pipes, check that the bowl walls are uniform in thickness all around, and that the hole at the hottom of the howl is centred. Purists buy uncarved, just plain pipe - shaped meerschaums that are simply but perfectly made.

Postcards...

Türkiye produces hundreds of thousands of colour postcards each year, and many of the images are candidates for the pantheon of kitach. The heart of the hilarious postcard trade is Ankara Caddesi, up the hill from Sirkeci Station, Istanbul. Walk up the street, and as you round the curve look in the shop windows for the postcards, then go into the printery and look at more. They're amazing. Besides kitsch, the printers turn out very handsome art and note cards with traditional Turkish designs and images of Turkish carpets and tiles.