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!

1958 Lufthansa bag tops €100

This ancient Lufthansa airsickness bag has been auctioned for over €100. That's over $US 121, or nearly £67. For a tatty old bag. Tatty old bag? No, this is a piece of airline history. It's from 1958, when mass air travel was still in its infancy. This was an era when planes were smaller and flew lower, and passengers were less inured to the bumps and turbulence of flight, and so were significantly more likely to feel queasy. So it's amazing that this bag ever made it out of the plane, let alone survived the intervening decades. Someone found it in his (her?) aunt's attic, folded up in a pile of old newspapers. Claiming to know nothing about bagology, the seller offered the bag for auction on eBay. Bidding was fierce, with several collectors competing for the right to call this bag their own. The final price: €100.50, paid by a well-known German baggist. Eye-popping triple-digit prices like this are bound to stimulate others to rummage around in their attics and basements in search of bags that can be turned into cash. And perhaps it will inspire others to start collecting today's bags in the hope of leaving a nest-egg for their grandchildren. Thanks to Janusz Tichoniuk for alerting me to this auction.

Monday, June 27, 2005 

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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