Our Senior Finance and Markets Correspondent Gerd Clemens reports from Hamm am Rhein:

Dear Baggists,

following you will find some very interesting auctions which took place in course of September 2006.

Number 1 was three very old bags from Air France and Air Algerie, which look as they would come from the times of Mongolfiere with their hot-air balloon. Thanks to Bruce Kelly I became aware of these 3 bags, so I suppose that you want to know more about this auction with a final price of €201.10! The # at eBay was 140025452447, so have a look on your own.

Runner up was a bag from Capital Airline at a price of US$ 212.50 which is about €168. Capital Airline is an old US airline which had Pennsylvania Airlines and Central airlines as predecessors. It was launched in 1947. In 1961 Capital airlines was merged into United Airlines. At this time this was the largest merger of 2 airlines.

Air Senegal International from Africa came in as number 3 at a price of €42.50, followed by Hawaiian Island Air at a price of €40.60. Eight bidders were fighting for this bag.

A bag from Biman the airline from Bangladesh was slightly different in colour which brought price up to remarkable €31.60.

Another old piece from USA was sold at a higher price namely a bag from TWA at €31.50 which was rank # 6.

Two new bags from Israel from ISRAIR came in as # 7 and 8 at prices of €29.55 and in a direct sale at €29.05.

ajet.com is a new airline from Cyprus. The former name was Helios Air, but after a very severe and mysterious accident, which took place beginning of this year, it seems that this carrier wanted to change its name. But it will not help to much as European authority is considering to cease their activities. Maybe for this reason bag will become even more expensive as it was in September when the bag was bought at €24.73.

City Express Air from Canada came in as # 10 at a price of €23.87 a real bargain compared to last year when this bag was bought at €59 and €35.

Air Kazakstan was bought at a price of €21.50.

Grand Canyon Airlines is believed to be the world's oldest and most experienced air tour company in continous operation since 1927. Despite this they have air sickness bags on board and one of them was taken and finally sold at a price of €21.50.

TAF Avioes Executios is an airline in Brazil I could not get information. Final offer for their plastic bag was at €21.50.

Chungiu-Spring Airlines is a low cost carrier based in Shanghai, but their bags remain to be very expensive, maybe more expensive than the fare for the flight? Despite the fact that their bag was on sale very often now final bit was still €20.70.

Another old bag from USA namely from PAN AM came in as # 15 at €19.05.

On # 16 we find the the Panamanian airline COPA, which was described last month, at a price of €17.35.

Icaro is from Ecuador and they run some helicopters and Fokker F 28. They are still very high in price as their plastic bag was sold at €14.14.

Air Philippines from Philippines with a bag with a different design was sold at €12.84 and at the same price we find a bag from JAS which is a sister company of Japan Airlines.

Iraqi Airways came in as # 20 at a price of €12.13.

The Russian carrier Transaero is offering a bag with a new design at €11.61 and the same with the Bulgarian Hemus at exactly €11.

It is good to see that a lot of airlines do us a favour by changing the designs of the bags regularly. If not I suppose it would by disappointing for us just to collect old stuff. Old stuff is a bag from British Airtours at a price of €10.75.

At a price of €10.60 we find an Israeli bag from Sun d'Or and then PanAm again slightly varying from the other one at €10.52 and just behind at €10.51 and at rank # 26 we see Interflug from former GDR with a red airplane as logo.

Then we have a number of bags at a price of €10.50 namely Uzbekistan Airways, Finnaviation, a former sister company (1970 -1996) of Finnair flying domestic routes, Bellview from Nigeria and a bag from a ferry Irish Continental Line.

On rank # 31 we find a PanAm bag, but different again, this time at €10.47 and then Air Florida at €10.18.

Finally at rank # 33 we have the Taiwanese carrier China Airlines with a new design at €10.02.

This was all for September as far as I could monitor it. If I missed some please send me an email.

Kind regards

Gerd Clemens