Stacy Conradt
The 10 Weirdest Pieces of Unclaimed Luggage
by Stacy Conradt - December 7, 2009 - 4:43 PM

We’ve all seen it: that one lonely suitcase on the baggage claim track at the airport that goes around and around with no owner in sight. What happens to it if no one shows up? Well, it might end up at the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, Alabama. That’s where you can visit a store that takes up an entire city block and find everything from the expected (clothing, toiletries, books) to, well, the unexpected. Here are 10 of the strangest items that have gone unclaimed.

hoggle1. Hoggle from Labyrinth. Unlike other items at the Unclaimed Baggage Center, Hoggle is not for sale. He is now a permanent part of the Unclaimed Baggage Center Museum. If you’re not familiar, Hoggle was David Bowie’s dwarf-goblin minion in the 1986 movie.

2. A slew of ancient Egyptian artifacts. From a mummified falcon to a shrunken head, a bunch of objects dating back to 1500 B.C. were found in an old Gucci suitcase. Christie’s auction house ended up selling the museum-worthy items in the ‘80s.

3. A rattle snake—a live one—roaming free amongst the rest of the unclaimed baggage.

4. A Naval guidance system. Yep—a piece of equipment worth $250,000 was lost and never claimed. The people at the Center decided to be good sports and return the expensive GPS to the Navy.

5. Bountiful Barbie (but not in the way you think). A woman purchased a Barbie at the Center for her daughter, which isn’t at all unusual. After all, kids lose toys all the time. But when the girl yanked the head off her new Barbie, $500 in rolled bills tumbled out of her body.

6. A full suit of armor. Unlike the Egyptian artifacts, this guy was merely a replica of a 19th century piece. Still, I bet to this day, there’s a guy out there who continues to tell the story of the time he lost a suit of armor at the airport.

7. A violin from the 1770s. Like Hoggle, it resides in the Unclaimed Baggage Center Museum.

8. A 5.8-carat diamond set in a platinum ring and packed in a sock.

9. A camera designed for use on a NASA Space Shuttle. Between this and the Navy’s lost luggage, I’m slightly concerned about the security measures our government agencies are taking! As with the Navy’s guidance system, the Center dutifully returned the camera to NASA.

10. A 40.95-carat natural emerald.

I’ve had missing luggage before, but it has always eventually shown up. Have you ever had anything completely and totally lost by an airline?

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Comments (49)

  1. Now that you mention it, i HAVE been looking for me 40.95-carat natural emerald.

    posted by Josh on 12-7-2009 at 4:50 pm

  2. They need to bring that store online…
    Christmas shopping anyone?

    posted by Chrystani on 12-7-2009 at 5:16 pm

  3. This is such weird timing for me – I’m headed to the Unclaimed Baggage Center for the first time this weekend! Definitely looking forward to seeing Hoggle as Labyrinth is one of my favorite movies.

    Captcha: shrubbed contributions
    Reminds me of another favorite movie – Monty Python and the Holy Grail

    posted by Morgan on 12-7-2009 at 5:20 pm

  4. The NASA camera is a bit less surprising when you consider the nearest city to Scottsboro is home to a NASA field center. That particular unclaimed baggage probably belonged to a local business traveler.

    posted by Doc Ezra on 12-7-2009 at 5:24 pm

  5. I had a piece of lost luggage returned to me from Heathrow after a few days of waiting but it came back almost ripped in half with very large tiremarks on it. Whether it was a truck or a plane that ran over my bag was never found out but I was happily paid $500 by American Airlines for the bag. Incredibly I was only paid after filing a claim. They actually sent me the demolished bag not thinking there was a problem.

    posted by Beecher on 12-7-2009 at 5:34 pm

  6. They don’t have a store online but they do have a site:

    http://www.unclaimedbaggage.com/

    posted by Sarah in CA on 12-7-2009 at 5:35 pm

  7. I’ve been to the Unclaimed Baggage Store a few times since moving to Birmingham. It’s always an adventure, and sometimes a rewarding one. I bought a pair of red boots there there get raves every time I wear them. My friend found an Italian leather jacket in his size for $40 that he later discovered retails for hundreds of dollars.

    I can’t *promise* you’ll find amazing stuff (some people seem to travel with nothing but stained tees or incredibly dated clothing — hypercolor, anyone?) but it’s good for a daytrip!

    posted by Terri on 12-7-2009 at 5:53 pm

  8. I never travel with anything nice in my checked bags if I can at all avoid it. After having my luggage lost a few times and hearing a few too many horror stories about stuff being lost for good or stolen or broken by airport employees, I wouldn’t put anything in my bags that I would ever miss if it was gone forever.

    posted by Melissa on 12-7-2009 at 6:15 pm

  9. My husband is an A&P mechanic – when planes come in for heavy checks they typically go thru the plane with a fine tooth comb removing seats and such like that.

    They find alot of small electronics wedged under or besides seats. Once someone found a container of over 50 DVD’s.

    There are stories of 1 guy finding a couple thousand dollars in the lavatory covered in Blue Juice – from how bad it was stained it had been there a long time.

    posted by beth on 12-7-2009 at 6:30 pm

  10. I lost my bags one time at the airport and had it returned completely wrapped in duct tape….I was very confused.

    posted by Sara on 12-7-2009 at 7:58 pm

  11. I cannot confess to having ever lost anything on an airline, however I am a person of interest apparently.

    Each time I check in I have to stand around for about five minutes while the worker gets their supervisor to determine that I’m not a terrorist. I tried to get the TSA to take me off the list one time but they basically told me to mind my own business – or more specifically to stay out of theirs.

    posted by Patrick on 12-7-2009 at 10:03 pm

  12. My mom & some of her siblings have gone there many times. I have alwayswanted to, but forget about it until someone tells me that they have gone. I think that employees open the bags, get out what they want & then deregard the rest. A friend who used to work ay the airport said that it happens all the time.

    posted by Sharon on 12-7-2009 at 10:37 pm

  13. Employees steal what they want & disregard the rest!

    posted by Sharon on 12-7-2009 at 10:39 pm

  14. I’ve been to that store before! We used to have an outlet store of Unclaimed Baggage in Decatur, AL too. It was always interesting to go in there just to see what kind of crap got lost in travel. You can find some pretty good deals in there too, if you get lucky!

    posted by iamtheddrman on 12-7-2009 at 10:43 pm

  15. I’m originally from a small town just outside of Scottsboro. We went to Unclaimed Baggage a lot when I was a kid! So excited to see an article on it. :)

    posted by Amber on 12-7-2009 at 10:47 pm

  16. Shortly after 911 I flew from St. Louis, MO to NYC. I had no problems with my luggage going to NYC, but on my way back to St. Louis, I had to fly out of Newark, NJ. This was before you had to be careful of which toletries you took with you. There was a medium sized bottle of mouthwash I’d bought in NYC, and had used over 4 days. It was at least half full and see through. After I arrived home and was unpacking I discovered the mouthwash had spilled inside a piece of my luggage and over the items within. The cap on the bottle was loose, and there was material inside the bottle floating in my mouthwash. I swear it looked like some jackass had rinsed, gargled, and rinsed again. Spitting back into my bottle. So naturally I never carried anything like that in my luggage again. If they’ll use your mouthwash in baggage handling, imagine what else they’ll do. Newark also stole a brand new set of designer luggage from my best friend. It was her first time using it, and she never got it back.

    posted by Deborah on 12-8-2009 at 12:07 am

  17. @Josh . I think it might be my emerald actually. I can 100% indentify it. It was green. And hard.

    posted by Angela on 12-8-2009 at 1:00 am

  18. Awww… Poor Hoggle.
    And I wonder if the violin was the Red Violin?

    Re-captcha: grasped $4-billion

    posted by Nerak on 12-8-2009 at 1:22 am

  19. I once visited a friend in southern California in a kind of sudden surprising fashion and it coincided with my birthday, so his family took the package they hadn’t mailed but had already packed and boxed and gave it to me. Somebody dumped the package, left everything except the small box itself and a Swiss Army Knife they’d engraved my name into. Three years later I got a package from Helsinki with my knife, incredibly well worn, with a note that said “Sorry.” Strangest thing that ever happened to me.

    posted by Dusty on 12-8-2009 at 4:14 am

  20. I should add the that small box was unopened in the top of my of stuff as you opened the suitcase. We all kind of assumed the knife had set off some kind of warning system and had simply been removed for security reasons, not that it had simply been needed/wanted.

    posted by Dusty on 12-8-2009 at 4:19 am

  21. Patrick — the Department of Homeland Security website has a section/program for people who have continued difficulty flying. Not sure if it will be helpful for you, but if you go to their homepage and click on “I want to find out if I’m on a travel watchlist,” you might be able to find something!

    posted by Christina on 12-8-2009 at 7:42 am

  22. My dad worked for an airline and used to bring home lost items all the time. I had multiple gameboys, cameras, expensive pens and a library full of paperbacks!

    posted by Carolyn on 12-8-2009 at 9:14 am

  23. In the early 90′s on one of the college breaks, I traveled to Hawaii with my girlfriend and her family. I had purchased a new Lands End duffel bag just before the trip which my GF and I shared. It made it to Hawaii but did not show up when we returned to Seattle. We had a wide variety of things from clothes, CDs, Walkmans, souvenirs, etc., in the bag which never did show up. I assumed it was stolen at SEATAC before we were able to claim it. I submitted a guesstimated list of its contents valeu and received a check from the airlines fairly promptly with no questions asked! I believe it was United, but I can’t say for sure.

    posted by mgseeley on 12-8-2009 at 9:20 am

  24. The mechanic with A&P, we need to get together. I misplaced 50 plus DVD’s of my daughters but could not get anyone from the airlines to help me out. My time was best used buying all new.

    posted by Dale on 12-8-2009 at 9:29 am

  25. I’ve heard about the center but have hesitated to go shopping there. While I believe some things are “unclaimed”, have had baggage lost and items taken out of my bags, I have a problem buying what can be, in essence, stolen property.

    posted by GaGirrl on 12-8-2009 at 10:19 am

  26. Why was someone traveling with Hoggle…and even more so…why would they leave him behind. He’s awesome (allbeit a bit of a grouch).

    posted by Beth Anne on 12-8-2009 at 10:58 am

  27. How do people lose such valuable items and NOT try to retrieve it?!

    posted by Levinson Axelrod on 12-8-2009 at 11:29 am

  28. June this year (2009) — direct flight San Diego – JFK. My bag disappeared, most likely still in SD. No tags, no info, like it didn’t exist. $1500 worth of hiking gear etc. JetBlue offered me $345. Told them to stick it…

    posted by DM on 12-8-2009 at 11:49 am

  29. Unclaimed my *(&A%&!. As a very frequent flyer, I can tell you that items go missing all the time. I dutifully file the claims, but airline staff tell me all the time that they have no people to match travelers with their “lost” items, so they automatically sell the items off. Heck, Air Canada has been known during storms to just autoroute luggage to the lost luggage vendor. It’s just too expensive for them to sort through thousands of delayed bags.

    I recently lost a very expensive piece of jewelry off my hand. In talking to the airlines and airports I was told over and over again that they didn’t even want to take my report because there was no point – they simply have no staff to to match my claim up with anything that is found.

    It is just cheaper and easier for them to sell off anything they find (income) than to make any effort to get it back to the owner (an expense).

    There’s no honor any longer with the travel biz.

    posted by Karen on 12-8-2009 at 12:15 pm

  30. I went to the Unclaimed Baggage store this past summer. VERY disappointed. Most of the stuff was junk and way over priced.

    posted by Michelle on 12-8-2009 at 12:32 pm

  31. Here is how things wind up at that store:
    The airlines must attempt to find the owners of the luggage. After they have done all that they can, and a specific amount of time has passed, they sell what’s left in lots. This store buys those lots, sorts and cleans the clothes, and puts what is suitable on sale. They also have an Unclaimed Freight annex – there’s some wild stuff in there too.

    posted by PartiallyDeflected on 12-8-2009 at 12:37 pm

  32. I was at the unclaimed baggage site. I didn’t understand why so many pieces of luggage were there clearly tagged with contact information inside.

    posted by Christie on 12-8-2009 at 1:18 pm

  33. I haven’t had any experience with lost luggage, thankfully. However, my dad used to work for Enterprise, and he said he was amazed at what people would leave in their rental cars. One time he found a set of golf clubs, and after a few months had passed, no one claimed them…so they became his.

    posted by Krie on 12-8-2009 at 1:33 pm

  34. Back before iPods I lost a good portion of my CD collection because I left it on the plane. I was devastated because at that time I was around 10 or 11 and they included CD’s like N’sync, Backstreet Boys, and the Spice Girls. We never tried to get them back because my parents figured it would be useless.

    Also when my sister came home for leave the first time the airline lost her luggage. They found it, though, completely okay.

    reCaptcha: Egypt toot (did the Sphinx just pass gas?)

    posted by Lindsey on 12-8-2009 at 1:52 pm

  35. I’ve had my luggage lost twice, luckily both times they were returned to me unharmed. One time I lost a stroller at Newark and we neer got it back. We were flying back from Arizona and my daughter got really sick, so when we finally got to the car we were pretty frazzled. My husband thought I put the stroller in the car and I thought he did. We get home and realize it wasn’t in the car. We called Newark and spoke to the airline, the security for the airport and to the parking lot people. No one wanted to help us and everyone said you had to talk to someone else. We figure someone found it and took it home. Now we always double check that the stroller is in the car.

    posted by Meghan on 12-8-2009 at 2:14 pm

  36. You know what they say: If you’ve never lost your luggage, you don’t travel enough!

    posted by Maryann on 12-8-2009 at 3:21 pm

  37. I’ve been to the one in Scottsboro-the one mentioned in the article. But I never saw anything really interesting.

    posted by Sara in AL on 12-8-2009 at 3:24 pm

  38. We passed by this store one time when I was younger. Now I’m really wishing we’d gone in. If I’m ever in the area again, I’ll certainly check it out.

    posted by Jennifer on 12-8-2009 at 6:34 pm

  39. Angela – emeralds are a softer stone…(unlike diamonds or sapphires)

    posted by Logan on 12-10-2009 at 5:13 am

  40. So that’s where my other sock went.

    posted by Ken on 12-12-2009 at 11:50 am

  41. i have had a person tell me untied lost his wife. But the golf clubs made it.

    posted by mike on 12-13-2009 at 10:46 am

  42. OK–I have a stranger one–I was taking a lost baggage claim, and the woman broke into tears–it seems her husband’s ashes were in the lost bag!!!

    posted by Kathi on 7-26-2010 at 2:55 pm

  43. My sanity?

    posted by Elizabeth S. on 8-27-2011 at 1:27 pm

  44. I’ve been to Stolen Luggage many a time…sometimes can get good jeans on the cheap. The room where they have a bunch a toiletry items is just down right gross.

    posted by FlockofSeaKelp on 8-27-2011 at 7:58 pm

  45. Years ago my dad forgot to take out his pocket knife before security, so they offered to package it up and send it on his flight. Needless to say, it never arrived with him so he filed a missing item report. A few years (yes YEARS) later he got a box in the mail from the airline saying they had found his missing item. Except it was a very large box and contained a computer! Curious, he turned it on and discovered it belonged to my cousin who shares the same last name! My cousin had lost it when returning from an overseas deployment with the military a few months before.

    Apparently, there was some kind of matching system for names and lost luggage. I guess they didn’t bother to look at the first name or the item lost!

    posted by Rebekah on 8-27-2011 at 9:14 pm

  46. In college I competed on a D1 track team as a hammer thrower. On a trip home my hammers (no not the tool…google it!) were lost. When I got them back the wires were so mangled they were no long usable. They were $500 implements. Needless to say when I took them to my coach he was beyond angry.I flew many times all over the country to meets and only had an issue once.

    posted by HammerThrower on 8-27-2011 at 9:16 pm

  47. Once had half my luggage go missing on my way back to Korea. 1 shoe, brand new Army black cardigan sweater (worn once) and lots of other items I’ve since forgotten. I think security couldn’t get the bag repacked like I had it and they never got it to Gimpo International Airport in.

    posted by Fish1552 on 8-27-2011 at 10:42 pm

  48. I’ve not lost luggage, but I got screwed over on a damage complaint – Upon arrival I found a small amount of damage on my bag, the TSA-approved lock I had bought because you were allowed to use it since they could open it with the standard key was missing, not even put in the bag like they were required to do if they cut off a non-approved lock. Opening the bag, I found my clothes were not folded like I packed them, but were in a jumble. The underwear that had been on the bottom of the bag was spread out all over the top, and there was black grease all over my white tights. Even worse, there were black grease handprints on the bust of my tan tank top! It was one of those ones with the built-in bra, and the handprints were right as if someone was groping whoever was wearing the shirt! My spare purse was in the bag, too, and that had been dumped out, but aside from maybe some coins it didn’t look like anything was missing.
    I complained, and the airline said they’d reimburse me for the tiny bit of damage on the suitcase, but nothing else, and in order to get the reimbursement I had to send in this form they would send me by a certain date.
    They sent the form 2 days after the last day I could send it in.

    posted by Mia on 8-28-2011 at 12:14 am

  49. I try to never check my bags, mostly because I usually fly into Midway in Chicago, which was built when you could still smoke on planes, and doesn’t seem to have updated their luggage handling for the traffic they have. Plus the few times I’ve had something embarrassing in my bag I found the TSA search card right underneath it.

    posted by Endless Mike on 8-28-2011 at 11:18 am

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