Okay, so what happens to all those suitcases that don’t get picked up? Welp, someone goes through them, and the items are then sold. We’re excited to share the results of the inaugural 2023 Unclaimed Baggage Found Report, “A Look Inside America’s Luggage.” The folks at Unclaimed Baggage (a retail store in Alabama selling the loot) had a team that sifted through tons of suitcases and uncovered more than 2 million objects. And given that you can take some totally weird stuff through TSA, it’s no surprise that these left-behind bags hold a certain amount of items with a story behind them.
The report includes, just like Casey Kasem, a Top 40 list...of the most fascinating finds. The No. 1 most unusual thing found? Two live snakes. That, of course, invites the easy joke that at some point when this luggage was in transit, there were, in fact, snakes on a plane. Second on the list was a voodoo box with a name written on the bottom...the name of the person who opened the box! Scary shit. And third, was an incredible recovery of not one but two Hermès Birkin bags. Hard to believe someone wouldn’t have claimed those bags within a bag.
The list is fun to scan and includes other finds like a $35,000 necklace, masks and prop body parts from the movie Saw, a suitcase full of wigs and nothing else, a mounted ram head, a jar full of shark teeth, a handmade medieval battle armor vest (clearly someone was on their way to LARPing), and an ancient Greek Athenian owl coin.
The most frequently found items? Underwear (the company promises only to sell brand-new pairs), shoes, and tablets/e-readers. Those slender tablets go into seat-back pockets and get forgotten. Apparently, there has been a significant uptick in tablet usage this year and a downturn in laptops. When cell phones are lost (No. 10 on the list of most frequently found), they are sent to e-waste to be responsibly recycled if they are locked down. If they aren’t, they can be sold.
Now then, if you don’t want someone clawing through your stuff and selling it, make sure you can always get your bag back—that means putting identification on it in the form of a durable luggage tag with all the information up to date. Unclaimed Baggage also recommends putting something inside the luggage as well, such as your business card, in case the tag gets detached. Bonus points for including your itinerary inside the bag to help the airline know your next destination.
Other tips? Remove old tags. It’s kind of fun to reminisce about your previous flights, but those tags can be confusing for baggage handlers. Choose a distinctive bag rather than the black roller everyone has. Put a tracking device inside. Be patient when talking with airline personnel who are trying to find your bag for you, and don’t give up. Finally, make sure important stuff is in your carry-on with you in case you and your luggage just never see each other again.
Unclaimed Baggage is in Scottsboro, Alabama, and sells items from lost luggage, bags left in overhead bins or seat-back pockets, stuff abandoned at security checkpoints, or simply left behind by passengers because the luggage didn't meet the weight requirements and they didn't want to pay the upcharge.