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!

Baggists welcome crass commercialism

US Airways is planning to put advertising on its barfbags, North American media outlets are reporting. Reports have surfaced in the Toronto Globe and Mail, the Phoenix Business Journal, CNN.com and Yahoo that the Tempe-based carrier is planning to sell advertising space on its seat-pocket bags. The fifth-largest US airline hopes this will provide a significant new revenue stream. Despite the media hype, US Airways is not the first airline to subject passengers to advertising on its bags. Alitalia and Air New Zealand have advertised various motion sickness products on their bags for years. Bag collectors are welcoming US Airways' move. "It increases the diversity of bags in the air", said one well-known baggist. "Most American carriers currently provide plain white bags. About the only thing they are good for is to make puppets." Another baggist speculates that bag advertising may herald the dawn of free air travel. "If the carriers sell lots of advertising on bags, they won't have to charge for tickets", he said. "Imagine: seat pockets stuffed full of lots of different sorts of bags. Collectors' paradise!"

Thursday, July 20, 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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