By Brittany Anas
Have you ever wondered what happens to bags that get left behind? Sure, a good deal of them are reunited with their owners. But, if airlines, motorcoach and other transportation companies can’t reconnect the rogue suitcases and carry-ons with owners after a few months and exhaustive searches, much of the lost luggage makes it way to an Alabama store called Unclaimed Baggage.
Every day, 7,000 new items are added to the store that’s located in Scottsboro, a town that’s in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, and it’s a bucket list destination for treasure hunters.
“It’s Disneyworld for shopping,” says Brenda Cantrell, brand ambassador for Unclaimed Baggage.
When it comes to the contracts the store has with places from which it sources unclaimed baggage, Cantrell is sworn to secrecy. But, she says, Unclaimed Baggage buys leftover luggage from just about any place where travelers are known to be. That means airplanes, trains, rental cars and, yes, buses and motorcoaches. As far as inventory goes, the one thing she could tell us is that the larger luggage tends to come from buses and motorcoaches.
The store is one of Alabama’s top tourism attractions, drawing roughly a million visitors every year from across the United States and 40 countries. Part of the draw? The ever-changing inventory in this treasure trove offers a thrill, and deal seekers can score deep discounts.
“You expect a wedding dress in a wedding dress store, diamonds in a jewelry store, laptops and tablets in an Apple store,” she says. “But you don’t expect to find it all under one roof.”
Jewelry, of course, is something that often catches people’s attention, Cantrell says. Sparkly diamonds and Rolex watches are frequent finds in the store. But, Unclaimed Baggage has also received some rather unusual items. Here’s a sampling of the most unique items that have arrived in the store.
- A 40.95 Carat Emerald: It arrived in the late 1990s in a bag filled with Mardi Gras beads and inexpensive jewelry. The store’s jewelry manager spotted it and knew it was authentic. It appraised for $35,000 and was priced at $16,000.
- Hoggle: The puppet was created for the fantasy film Labyrinth. The high-tech puppet that requires a small team to work the remote controls for facial expressions was damaged by the time it reached the store. It was restored and is now showcased in the store’s museum.
- A dried bullfrog purse. Other creatures have included antler horns, a crocodile head and a quite mythical one, a six-foot-tall papier–mâché Tinker bell doll.
Oh, and if you want to take your own travelers to visit the Unclaimed Baggage store (a reminder perhaps to hold on to their own belongings and not leave them on your bus), the afternoons are a great time to go. At 2:30 p.m. every day (Monday through Saturday), the store does an “Unclaimed Baggage Experience” where a guest gets to open up an unprocessed suitcase. The baggage has been sanitized first, and staff members make sure there’s nothing harmful, dangerous or embarrassing in the bag. The shopper gets to help decide what gets stocked in the store, and can try to guess where the traveler might have been headed before losing his or her bag.
If you go: 509 West Willow Street, Scottsboro, Alabama; (256) 259-1525; unclaimedbaggage.com
