Welcome. This is what my wife calls "a bunch of stupid jokes and pictures of paper bags." She's right about the jokes. She's wrong about the bags: some of them are plastic.

What the critics say: "Utterly unnotable" (Wikipedia editor). "Ridiculous collections #4" (Buzzfeed). Other comments: "As complete wastes of time go, it's a very high quality complete waste of time... An entirely dispensable source of inane comments about a truly trivial subject... A monument to the planet's worst corporate design... An unwelcome reminder of some of the more unpleasant moments in our lives."

Donations (unused, please) of bags not represented in the bag gallery are welcomed -- please mail to this address, and I'll credit you on this site! I am happy to trade any extras that I have. Check out the links to other bag sites, find out how you can use your spare bags, and explore the fascinating world of bag manufacturers. 

Highlights: The design features page reveals the secrets of professional baggery, and the logos page analyses the enigma of airline corporate identities. Search for your favourite bag, browse the bag gallery by country and airline, and check out the biggest, best and worst bags!

Storm in a bag

Bowing to popular request, I've put together a list of publicly available information on barfbag collections. There is dispute over who occupies the two top spots. Claims, counterclaims and accusations have been made, sometimes descending into the realm of farce. I'm reminded of a remark often attributed to Henry Kissinger: "Academic politics are so bitter because the stakes are so small". Please note that www.bagophily.com is based on the premise that bag-collecting is inherently silly. Those who lack sufficient humour to appreciate this should perhaps seek a different avocation - or not visit this website. Suffice it to say that German collector Oliver Conradi and Dutch baggist Niek Vermeulen both have lots of bags. Taking bronze is Alaska-based baggist Bruce Kelly, with 3643 bags (including several hundred that Niek would reject). In fourth place is Homer Goetz, with 2349 bags, and coming in fifth is mine - what my wife persists in calling "eine mickrige Kleinsammlung" (a miserable little collection) at 2298 bags. This total includes the world's largest publicly acknowledged collections of both dogshit and sanitary bags. If these ancillary items are excluded, it's quite possible that I would drop several places, below Gerhard Lang's 2241 bags, David Bradford's 2143, and Walter Brinker's 1903. Germany is clearly the capital of the bagworld, with 5 collectors in the top 10. The USA comes second, with 2, and the Netherlands, Denmark and New Zealand taking the remaining places.

Sunday, February 19, 2006 

Underbagged

What do Latvia, Liberia and Lesotho have in common? Yes, they all start with an L. What else? They're all missing from my barfbag collection.

What's the biggest country not represented? Chad. In terms of population? Burkina Faso. Other prominent absentees (coloured red in the map): Georgia and Rwanda. 

Major underrepresented portions of the globe are a swathe of Africa and chunks of Central Asia and Central America.

Donations from these areas especially welcome!

Centres of megabagdiversity are the USA (though many US bags are distressingly plain), China, the UK, Canada, Germany, Brazil and Indonesia. 

Click here for details.

For new baggists only

New to the world of bag collecting? Want to get a head start on your collection? Then send me an email, and I'll send you a randomly selected free starter pack from my surplus bag stock. There won't be anything rare, and you may end up with some duplicates, but at least you'll be able to show your friends a few more of these lovely cultural artefacts. Make sure you include your mailing address in your email. Offer good as long as stocks last.

This is where old news goes when it's too old to be news.

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