The Japanese TV show is said to have featured a barfbag from the Hindenburg

Could a bag have survived this?

If a charred envelope can fetch $14,000, how about a mint-condition barfbag?

A barfbag from the doomed airship Hindenburg has turned up on a Japanese antiques show.

Or has it?

The Daily Yomiuri Online alerts readers to a Tuesday evening programme on TV Tokyo called Family Treasure Appraisers (or Nandemo kanteidan in Japanese). This "allows collectors to seek elusive objects and the public to learn the the value of family heirlooms as the at-home viewer contemplates life's forgotten artifacts and oddities. The show's research department provides interesting background information on some of the more newsworthy objects such as their recent report on a set of china, drink canister and barf bag brought back from a 1936 trip on the Hindenburg--all in perfect condition."

The Hindenburg, a German airship, burst into flames at Lakehurst, New Jersey, on 6 May 1937, killing 35 people on board. Some 61 passengers and crew survived the disaster.

The Family Treasure Appraisers (or "We'll Appraise Anything") programme, the Japanese equivalent of the BBC's Antiques Roadshow, has a panel of experts who value objects brought to the studio by celebrities and members of the public. It is moderated by Ishizaka Koji (a well-known Japanese actor) and Shimada Shinsuke. The programme with the purported Hindenburg bag was broadcast on 15 May 2007.

This programme included a valuation of 27 items from the Hindenburg, owned by a Mrs Otani, whose great-grandfather previously owned them. The "agreed value" (whatever that means) was 100,000 yen (about EUR 610), and the "evaluated value" was 800,000 yen (about EUR 4880; this is revealed if you click on the "open the price" button on the site).

However, baggist Homer Goetz casts doubt on the possibility that a barfbag was among the 27 items on the show.

"There not have been barf bags on board of these huge air ships like the Hindenburg", he says. "The airships did not fly but sail, and to signalize passengers that sailing on an airship was extremely safe and a comfortable alternative for flying, there could not be sicknessbags on board. That was the result of my correspondence 4 years ago with people from Zeppelin museum in Friedrichshafen, which included a steward from Hamburg, who was sailing as a young man on the Hindenburg."

If a barfbag was aboard, it could be worth a lot of money. Mail recovered from the crash fetches high prices - up to US$ 14,000 - among philatelists.

If you'd like to check the current availability of bags on board current-day airships, you can book a flight on the Zeppelin that does aerial tours over its home base of Friedrichshafen, in southern Germany. A mere EUR 200 will allow you to snaffle all the bags on board - if there are any.