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!

Bags around the world

Reiner Schulz's bagart project is proceeding apace. Frequent readers of this column (if there are any) will recall that he got a bunch of people to paint a bunch of barfbags green. He then sent them to collectors around the world - on the condition that they send him a photo of themselves with the bag. This effort is bearing fruit. Click on the map to the left to see not only where the bags have ended up, but also photos of your favourite baggists. There's Rune Tapper trying to block the view of a spectacular aurora borealis. David Shomper is feeding a bronze bison and then collecting its droppings. Oliver Conradi is about to board a plane to steal yet more bags. Jan Tomášek is comparing the size of his bag with Prague Cathedral. Aidan Stradling is checking the contents of his bag before crossing the swing bridge at Gateshead in the UK. Janusz Tichoniuk is pretending he's in tropical Africa rather than freezing in Poland. Walter Brinker is pretending to be a plane. Rafael Despradel really is in a tropical paradise - a beach in the Dominican Republic. I wonder if the girls on the beach are as impressed as they should be by the size of his bag collection? Tom de Kort is showing off his bag in the most interesting place in Belgium he could find. Homer Goetz looks much younger than I thought he would be, given the size of his collection. Maybe Copenhagen's Little Mermaid has reversed the ageing process? And then there's me - holding a bag aloft to spoil the tourists' view of Cologne Cathedral.

Saturday, June 17, 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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