The Unclaimed Baggage Center is the only place in the US where you can view and purchase the insides of somebody else’s luggage – with the assumption that the insides weren’t worth trying to get said baggage back. On average, about 150,000 luggage bags in the U.S. are lost in connection, destination, mishandling transactions, or simple forgetfulness every month (April 2022 saw a record 220,000).
Now, it’s certainly in every airline’s best interest to find these lost bags and deliver them back to their rightful owners, but sometimes the claim simply never comes through. This is the Unclaimed Baggage Center’s fortune to be in the business. The organization buys said abandoned baggage, sorts through it, in many cases refurbishes it, flips it, and… then promptly sells it to or displays it for you.
While some of the spread may look a liiiiiittle thrift store-esque, it is an enjoyment just to walk around and look at the things that people tried to transport through airports and were never able to get ahold of after their departure.
The interesting oddities are on display around the shop, above the merchandise for purchase. This includes everything from a Dung Chen, to tribal breastplates, to McDonald’s arches. Each item found has a unique backstory, and occasionally some research has been done on it for your reading pleasure. The artifacts are wide ranging in their randomness, and certain to provoke the typical inquiry; “Why would somebody ever try to fly with this thing???”
Apart from that, it’s also a crazy commentary on product consumption when you see the abandoned items that would otherwise be great value, just simply stacked on top of each other. Each smaller electronic item found is simply organized into the same box with all the other ones of its kind, and every higher value item is placed next to the same of its kind behind a display case. What once was an individual’s data, memories, documents, and possessions, are wiped, cleaned, tested and resold just like that.
The Unclaimed Baggage Center is doing a great job taking care of what it receives in random inconsistent quantities, but it’s just mind blowing to think that the items it houses once held varying values and excerpts from other peoples lives at one point or another. What differs here is the voluntary donation of the items. While at thrift stores the merchandise is largely donated deliberately, the Unclaimed Baggage Center makes do with the luggage that was left over, without receiving any closure or backstory on how involuntary it was. After all, nobody intends to lose their luggage if they go flying. There can be a little bit of guilt going through the merchandise, knowing full well that every item was another individual’s lost possession, but at the end of the day, the center is certainly doing a service to the public – without a store specializing in such a thing, the next stop down the road for unclaimed bags would be the landfill.
For more links to reference, please visit:
https://www.unclaimedbaggage.com/
https://www.facebook.com/UnclaimedBaggageCenter/
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/unclaimed-baggage-center