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!

Storing and displaying bags

June sees the start of a major new series on bagophily.com: how baggists store and display their collections. These topics bring up major technical issues (how best to store fragile bags from the dawn of commercial aviation?) as well as revealing deep psychological and social fissures in our society. Perhaps fearful of dinnertime conversations turning to regurgitated stomach contents somewhere between the main course and dessert, baggist wives (inexplicably, most baggists are male) seem to banish collections from their living rooms to the more inaccessible recesses of the nuptial abode. German baggist Walter Brinker has his collection in a different building. Dutch baggist Niek Vermeulen even lives on a different continent from his collection - which is housed in a freezing basement on the Belgian/Dutch border, while Niek spends most of the time he isn't away stealing bags in sultry Manila. My own collection is housed in the living room, but nearly caused a divorce when I used it to decorate the apartment one Christmas. Unimpressed by my plea that bags were aesthetic additions to standard festive fare, my wife refused to speak to me until all the bags I had lovingly strung up were safely back in their file boxes. San Diego baggist Bob Grove has no such problems. He has framed much of his collection - some 632 bags - and displays them around his house. "They hang on the walls of the three bathrooms", says Bob. "They have taken over a spare bedroom. I am pretty much out of wall space. I will not let them invade the dining room." Sharp-eyed fellow-collectors will note a few prize items on display: ARP 410 Airlines, Surinam Airways, a bright red Empire, and ancient MAS and Gulf Air bags. All this in San Diego - the new place of pilgrimage for the baggist confraternity. Click here for more.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007 

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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