There’s nothing more frustrating than arriving at your destination and discovering your bag didn’t make it.
In 2024, over 36 million bags were mishandled by airlines – either lost, stolen or damaged. That’s around seven bags for every thousand checked in. While many bags are ultimately reunited with their owner, a small percentage are lost forever.
Most bags contain nothing more than mundane items of clothing and a few toiletries. But some people travel with much stranger belongings – a suit of armour, a toilet seat, and even a glass eye have all been retrieved from lost bags over the past year.
According to Unclaimed Baggage, a US-based retailer that sells items from unclaimed airline luggage, these odd items are just the tip of the iceberg. Its Found Report uncovers the strangest, most expensive and most commonly lost items reclaimed from airline baggage.
“Since 1970, we’ve unpacked more than just belongings—we’ve discovered the unique stories behind travellers’ journeys,” said CEO & President Bryan Owens. “From the most valuable to the trendy, the ‘Found Report’ gives readers a first-class seat to the most compelling tales uncovered from the previous year.”
Weird and wonderful finds that boggle the mind
Some of the items found by Unclaimed Baggage in travellers’ suitcases last year are head-scratchingly strange.
Take, for instance, the full breastplate from a medieval suit of armour or the Roman soldier’s helmet. The company didn’t say if these came out of the same bag, but given they’re from different historical periods, they probably didn’t – no self-respecting live-action role-player would dare mix up their eras.
One bag contained a freeze-dried chicken’s foot, which you could wash down with a jar of whiskey containing a preserved rattlesnake from another. If that creeps you out, how about opening a bag to find no clothes, no toothpaste, just dozens of enormous spiders and beetles preserved in cases.
Historical items were flying around the world more than you’d expect. Passengers’ luggage contained all sorts of ancient treasures, from an antique mustache curler to a decades-old magician’s hat.
Probably the most disturbing find, however, was an antique French book on performing exorcisms. Who knows what the ultimate intent for that particular item would have been?
And then there was the just plain weird – a silicon pregnancy belly, a pair of silicone butt pads and a full set of dentures complete with tooth jewels.
One bag in particular had the Unclaimed Baggage workers hot under the collar. The team said, “There are heavy bags, and then there was this bag.”
When the heavyweight suitcase was hauled in to be unpacked, workers were eager to see what was inside. Gold bars? Ancient artefacts? Something special for sure, given its ridiculous weight.
Sadly, the case opened to reveal… rocks. Nothing else. Just rocks. Perhaps this was a misguided geologist’s collection or some strange attempt at weight training, but we’ll never know.
High class luxuries in unclaimed baggage
Not all the items recovered were just plain weird – some were weirdly expensive, raising questions about why people wouldn’t try harder to track them down.
The most expensive item found in an unclaimed bag was an 18-karat white gold solitaire diamond ring, thought to be worth around $39,000 (€34,000). There was also a gold President Oyster Rolex watch, valued at around $20,000 (€17,500).
Among the other lost luxuries were designer garments from the likes of Chanel and Alexander McQueen worth thousands, and pieces of Louis Vuitton luggage that on their own would fetch more than $10k (€17,500+).
Expensive cameras, designer dog carriers and a $7,000 (€6,200) handmade flute all came out of lost bags last year too.
What else do we leave behind on our travels?
It’s not only lost luggage from airlines that tell a tale about how we travel today. Uber’s annual lost and found index, also released this week, details what its drivers find left behind in their cars.
Predictably, the most commonly lost items include phones, wallets, keys and headphones. An incredible 1.7 million phones were left in rideshare cars last year, and more than 70 Nintendo Switch consoles.
But those aren’t the strangest things Uber drivers have found, not by a long way. Among the most ‘unique’ finds were a chainsaw, a DNA testing kit, 10 live lobsters and a urinal.
Apparently we’re prone to leaving things in hotel rooms, too. Hotels.com released its ‘Innsights’ report last year, revealing a car tyre, an engagement ring, a tooth, two full-leg casts, stacks of cash, a pet lizard, and a chick were all among the items forgotten by travellers when they checked out.
TFL, the company that runs the London public transport network, has a warehouse of unclaimed belongings and gets around 6,000 new items every week. Among these lost items have been a box of cooked frogs, a glass jar filled with bats, a Dalek costume and a puffer fish.
How to avoid losing your luggage
While the contents of some of these bags beg the question ‘why’, the fact remains that if you don’t want your weird travel companions to be discovered, don’t lose your bag.
Avoiding checking a bag in is a great strategy, as your luggage will stay with you at all times. Some airlines have quite generous allowances for carry-on baggage, so consider if you can avoid the unknown by travelling light.
If you do need to check in a bag, make sure you can spot it from a mile away. Bright straps, coloured ribbons and unique stickers will all help your luggage stand out on the carousel among all the other black cases.
Many lost bag incidents occur during connecting flights. If you can, choose a direct flight to minimise the chance of disruption during the connection.
For the ultimate peace of mind, Apple’s AirTag product has become a passenger favourite for keeping an eye on your bag. As they rely on Bluetooth via the ‘Find My’ network, tracking can be more reliable than GPS alone and can help you pinpoint a missing bag rapidly from anywhere in the world.
If the worst does happen and you become separated from your luggage, it’s essential to report it immediately to the company you were travelling with. For air travel, the airport will ask you to complete a Property Irregularity Report (PIR), which will generate a reference number to help you track progress.
While the airline is looking for your luggage, they will usually reimburse you for essential items you need to purchase, such as toiletries or clothes. If after 21 days the bag still hasn’t been found, you’ll be able to claim compensation.
Airlines have a maximum liability for lost luggage, typically around €1,600 per passenger, but it does vary. Any unclaimed luggage is usually sold, donated or disposed of.
In the US, airlines will search for the owners of bags for 90 days, but if the luggage is still unclaimed by that point, it ends up with Unclaimed Baggage at its store in Scottsboro, Alabama. The contents are catalogued and either placed for sale in its retail store, repurposed for charity or recycled.
Ultimately, you can spare yourself the grief of losing a treasured possession by simply not travelling with it at all. While you might love them very much, it’s probably best to leave the armor, arachnids, and ancient artefacts where they belong—safely at home.
