Unclaimed Baggage, a retailer of lost luggage, has released its annual 2025 “Found Report,” offering a glimpse into the most curious, costly and common items discovered in unclaimed luggage during the past year. And what happens to those items.
In 2024, airlines experienced another record-breaking year of passenger volume and amount of checked luggage. In July alone, U.S. airlines handled 45.6 million bags, according to the Bureau of Transportation. A small percentage of these – less than 0.05% to be exact – were unable to be reunited with their owners.
After a 90-day search, if luggage remains lost, travellers are compensated and the bags are sent to Unclaimed Baggage in Scottsboro, Alabama, where the contents are reshined for retail, repurposed for charity, or recycled responsibly.
The “Found Report” divulges details of millions of items that entered its facility since 1970. Some of them include:
- A suit of armour
- Freeze-dried chicken foot
- Various pets
- $39,000 diamond ring
- A bag full of rocks
- Bear pelt packed in salt
- Camera from the Space Shuttle
- Egyptian burial mask
- Hoggle, a puppet from the Jim Henson film ‘Labyrinth’
- A 1934 French newspaper
- Live rattlesnake
- Shrunken head
- Zebra skin with ears and tail
- Unicycle
- 19th century opium scales, and
- Lots and lots of underwear
“Left behind luggage gives us a snapshot of passengers’ lives,” says Sonni Hood of Unclaimed Baggage. “Each year, the ‘Found Report’ connects those snapshots into a bigger picture –capturing unique insights into how we move, what we value most and how packing habits evolve and change over time.”
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