ROUND AND ROUND IT GOES: Mark Meyer (above left) and Billy LeRoy (above right) bid on suitcases that are lost by the airlines. (
)
Has an airline ever lost your bag? No, wait, let me revise that. How many times have the airlines lost your bags?
And how many times did you get them back? Since I and everyone I love has the wanderlust — lost bags are as common a hazard in my family as winter colds.
There was the time two years ago that Alitalia lost one of our suitcases and a kiddie car seat.
The bag, sadly, was gone forever, but they did “return” a car seat. Just not ours. In fact, this one looked like it had been lost during the Carter administration.
If you, too, know the horror of lost luggage in a foreign country, you’re not alone. In fact — are you ready? — 70,000 bags are lost by airlines every day.
So, what happens to all that forever lost baggage with all the underwear, computers, shoes, medicines, wedding gowns and kinky things you shouldn’t have packed in the first place?
Tonight, Travel Channel premieres a nifty new program, “Baggage Battles,” that, for better or worse, shows you where it all ends up. But you won’t like it.
Every six months or so, whole ballrooms full of lost luggage are auctioned off at venues around the world. And it’s all pretty much sight unseen — buy it first, open it later.
Tonight, we meet the show’s stars. There’s Laurence and Sally Martin, a former aerospace engineer and a cable TV exec who now own Studio Antiques in California.
Next is former adman, Billy LeRoy, who owns downtown nuthouse, “Billy’s Antiques and Props” in the Bowery.
Finally, there’s 25-year-old mad man Mark Meyer, who began hustling auction items at 16 when he quadrupled his money at his first auction and now owns Long Island’s Nifty Thrifty.
Each week, we follow these fierce competitors, learning their strategies. Each auction opens with a pre-viewing that only lasts 60 minutes but can include more than 600 items.
Billy thinks a heavy bag means more than just clothes inside. The Martins like carry-ons because those are the bags in which people keep personal items — like jewelry. And Mark? He likes a well-traveled good bag, because it means the former owner had money.
Lost items like jewelry are sold in lots in (yes) gallon-sized baggies. A bag can contain everything from a Rolex to tacky junk.
Think “Pawn Stars,” meets “Storage Wars.” And, like those shows, the quirky buyers are as fascinating as what they (in this case), er, bag.