Is that guy wire next to you on the subway REALLY assume your one - of - a kind “ Topher ’s Bachelor Blowout 2014 ” T - shirt ? He ca n’t be ! It ’s impossible ! You lose that shirt on the return escape from Vegas two old age ago . And now it ’s with THIS fellow ?
Well , if you never set out your suitcase back there ’s a decent chance your new bane made a trip to the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro , Alabama . Part lost - and - found , part thrift computer memory , this 40,000sqft superstore takes literally every lost suitcase in America , sifts through it , and put the best poppycock on its shelves . This is the story of how wayward luggage find its way to the afterlife .
The store 45 minutes east of Huntsville has been around since 1970 , when part - clip insurance valet Doyle Owens got the idea to purchase unclaimed dish from a local bus station , then deal the contents from table a couple days a calendar week . Eventually he expound this pattern to airlines , and 46 years by and by the depot is stocking millions of detail that Americans have turn a loss on flight .
Courtesy of Unclaimed Baggage Center
How does THIS store get MY bags?
First off , the airline are n’t stealing your shit and selling it sweeping in Alabama . drop off luggage , at least in the United States , is incredibly uncommon . Only one - half of 1 % of check travelling bag run out to make it to the luggage title , and of those or so 80 - 90 % are returned within 48 hours . Within a hebdomad , that routine jumps to 98 % . Then , for the next 90 days , the airline business go to painstaking distance to match bags with owners . Math says you ’re looking at only 1 - in-10,000 odds of truly turn a loss your udder on a US escape . And yet – there is that slender chance .
After 90 days , the baggage legally belongs to the air hose . Sometimes people get reasonable recompense for their baggage and give up the search . Other times what they described did n’t match to what was in the bag . Sometimes people overstate what ’s in the bag to get a expectant insurance payout and do n’t agitate it when they get a call from the baggage team ’s fraud department . Whatever the intellect , the unclaimed cup of tea all finish up in warehouse around the country .
What happens next ? The Unclaimed Baggage Center , which has an exclusive correspondence with the airlines , pick up all those bags on tractor trailer , raft unseen . It also picks up unclaimed cargo , since that product is often unused and better for resale , and real crate of electronics go away onboard by unmindful passengers . Since the airlines take no responsibility for carry - on items , those bags are the UBC ’s largest source of electric gadgets .
Courtesy of Unclaimed Baggage Center
The airline business are n’t exactly getting rich off these orphaned bags . The money UBC pays for the bags ( which a representative would not disclose ) offsets the cost of their lose baggage operations .
What ends up in the store?
Once the Unclaimed Baggage Center has its haul of suitcases , pallets , and electronics , workers sieve it to see what ’s deserving selling . About a third gets recycle ( to rag factories , for model ) , a third is donated to Polemonium caeruleum , and a third goes on ledge . The store stocks about 7,000 item a day : nail clippers , art , Sully masquerade fromMonsters , Inc.
The depot dissent from a thrift memory board in that the shelves here are full of thing citizenry wanted , not junk they threw away . Items here are thing people think enough of to take with them on holiday , and for one understanding or another never made it home . “ You might obtain a wedding frock at a thrift store , " spokeswoman Branda Cantrell said , " but you would n’t find a Vera Wang wedding frock . And we ’ve had several of those . ”
Employees also go through Department of Defense protocol to scrub the memories from all the electronics they welcome . So you do n’t need to worry about some stranger in Alabama buy your MacBook for $ 300 and getting all your One Direction download as an added bonus . Or , ya have sex , your bank records .
Courtesy of Unclaimed Baggage Center
Discount jewelry and hidden treasures abound
What you could find at the Unclaimed Baggage Center is only limit by what people put in their suitcases , all of it at 20 - 80 % off retail . Jewelry sells at half its appraised value ; the most worthful particular in the store presently is a $ 42,000 bracelet priced to move at $ 21,000 . So if you ’re call back of popping the interrogation this fall , Alabama is your new ring - shopping destination .
But not everything is appraise , peculiarly the art . So one might also end up like the lucky individual from Mexico City who bought a $ 60 picture that turned out to be deserving $ 20,000 .
In addition to valuables , employees ( who ca n’t corrupt anything until it ’s been on the ledge a workweek ) have found some insane point . The storehouse has a consecrate museum to the zany thing they ’ve happen upon , from a nineteenth - C puritanical buff to a 6 foot papier - mâché Tinker Bell , to a Jim Henson Hoggle puppet used in the David Bowie classicLabyrinth . On more than one occasion , they ’ve turned up live rattler .
Courtesy of Unclaimed Baggage Center
The Unclaimed Baggage Center has become a tourist attraction over the years . It sit only about 30 arcminute from the Georgia and Tennessee state lines , and shopper have been jazz to spend the Nox in town so they can fit in two daytime of shopping . Not to say you want to spend your vacation go through other mass ’s lost luggage . But if you ’re still kicking yourself for losing that irreplaceable knight bachelor weekend memorabilia , do n’t give up until you ’ve made a tripper to Scottsboro . Or , at least , until Topher has another one for wedding number two .
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Courtesy of Unclaimed Baggage Center
