Some more market research on those lovely Virgin Atlantic bags... Updated on 31 March

Single bag prices volatile as offers taper off

A single bag - the highly regarded Furi Furi manga cartoon design on the left, fetched a record price of £2.70 (plus postage) on 22 March. Prices for complete sets seem to be stabilizing around the £1.00 a bag mark, though fewer sets are now coming on the market. (31 March)

Limited Edition truly Limited

According to one recent seller on eBay, Virgin Atlantic are switching back to their boring old-style bags on flights from Los Angeles. A warning to desperate baggists who do not yet have a set, or merely a ploy to boost bag prices? (18 March)

Prices for these delectable items have been volatile over the last week, ranging from a mere £10.50 for a full set of 20 bags (£0.53 per bag) on 13 March, up to £31 for a set (£1.55 per bag) on the next day. But there hasn't been a repeat of the madness of late February and early March, when bagprices zoomed to £43 for a set (£2.15 a bag), then slumped to a miserly £5.50 (£0.28 a bag).

Confidential sources report to The Bagonomist that many recent bagbuyers are new to the market. Insiders speculate that the Virgin Atlantic series has attracted the attention of collectors who normally trade in stewardesses' uniforms and little metal model planes. Or perhaps these are well established baggists who are merely trading under assumed names to hide their true identities.

Top bagseller so far has been eBay trader kd1902, who has so far sold 160 bags (8 complete sets), and has raked in the tidy sum of £162.05 over the last 2 months. Where does this trader get his (her?) apparently unlimited supply from? A friendly member of the cabin crew? Or perhaps this is a Virgin crewmember trying to boost a meagre salary by purloining his/her employer's property?

Since December 2004, Bagophily.com's highly paid eBay bagonomists have tracked the fate of 893 bags: 38 full sets of 20 bags, plus 29 lots of individual bags or partial sets. The average price has been £0.92 per bag. In all, 793 bags have changed hands during this time - though another 100 bags have failed to find a buyer.

That may seem a lot of bags. But look at it another way: that's the seat-pocket contents of less than a brace of Virgin Atlantic's A340 widebodied jets. Or only 0.18% of the 500,000 "Limited Edition" bags that Virgin is thought to have printed.

Top dollar so far has been the £44.00 (£2.20 per bag) shelled out in December 2004 by one (formerly) well-heeled baggist for one of the 200 boxed sets presented to passengers on the inaugural flight from the UK to Australia.

Overall, it's been cheaper to buy partial sets. The average price for individual bags or partial sets has been £0.50 per bag, compared to £0.94 per bag for a full set. However, the additional cost of postage for several partial sets may offset this advantage.

Cheapest price so far has been £5.50 (£0.28 per bag) paid by a baggie from Germany. This collector cannot seem to get enough of these admittedly desirable items. He (she?) has so far purchased no less than seven complete or partial sets of bags.

Such prices are peanuts compared to the $80 paid by a connoisseur recently for a single bag from a Brazilian airline.