SCOTTSBORO, Ala. (WTVF) — Four months ago, Southwest Airlines was in the middle of a meltdown as travelers packed airports for Christmas getaways. Many people were left stranded and separated from their luggage. Now months later, I may have just found some of them a little over two hours from Nashville.
Unclaimed Baggage is the nation's only retailer of lost luggage. What that means is we have contracts will all the major airlines and once a bag has been lost for a minimum of 90 days, and once an airline has conducted an extensive search for its original owner, then that bag is deemed unclaimed.
The next stop for those unclaimed bags is Scottsboro, Alabama. Sonni Hood with the store, Unclaimed Baggage says 99.5% of bags are returned to their owners. But that less than one percent really adds up.
“In our retail store in Scottsboro, we stock up to 7,000 new items every day,” Hood said.
The company’s online store adds 5,000 unique items per week.
The savings add up, too. Items are marked 20 to 80% off their retail value, drawing more than a million shoppers per year to the small town of just 15,000 people. But for some, it’s not about the bargain hunt — it’s about the lost treasures.
“This is a collection that spans 52 years. So over the course of those 52 years, you find some pretty weird and wonderful things,” Hood said.
Just this week, Unclaimed Baggage unveiled a new museum of its most unusual finds. More than 100 items are on display like a frog purse, shrunken human heads, a Michael Jordan signed basketball, and a menagerie of musical instruments from around the world, including a 300-year-old violin. But the one that draws the most onlookers: a Jim Henson puppet, named Hoggle.
“Hoggle arrived to us in 1997, he had completely deteriorated in a suitcase. It was determined it was the original Hoggle from the film "The Labyrinth" starring David Bowie. In honor of the museum, we had him additionally refurnished by a company in California that truly brings him back to his former glory and how he looked in the film,” Hood said.
The original puppet’s head is displayed alongside the refurbished version, showing the mechanical inner workings of his skull, which was the most advanced form of puppet technology in the 80s.
All these treasures were somehow lost along their journey but found again, and now given a new life.
