Tag - Airport Auctions

Baggage Battles – Unclaimed Baggage Auctions

Baggage Battles

Baggage Battles is a new new reality television show about the relatively unknown business of unclaimed baggage auctions. Have you or has someone you know ever lost a bag at the airport? Do you want to know what eventually happened to it? Millions of bags are lost every year at airports around the world. Typically, if a bag is not claimed within 6 months, it is moved to another location and sold at public auction.

Baggage Battles premiers on the Travel Chanel on April 11th, 2012 at 10:00 PM ET/PT with back to back episodes taped in Miami and London. You might even recognize a couple of the cast members on this new show. Laurence and Sally Martin, the antique store owners seen helping Barry & Darrell on Storage Wars, will be two of the 4 main participants on the show. They have owned Studio Antiques in El Segundo, California for over 20 years. Other cast members include Billy Leroy, who owns Billy's Antiques and Props,  in New York City and Mark Meyer, who is a young entrepreneur and owner of  the Nifty Thrifty store in Long Island.

Baggage Battles explores the lucrative business of bidding, buying and reselling unclaimed baggage. This special niche requires them to attend multiple auctions and buy hundreds of bags. When they're bidding on these bags, they have no idea what's inside. They have to rely on their instincts to determine which bags may be profitable and which bags most likely contain worthless clothing or junk. They don't know if they hit the jackpot until they win they win the bid and open the suitcase.

When Storage Wars and Auction Hunters first premiered, people who saw the shows flocked to storage auctions across the country. These shows created a modern day "gold rush". This increase in buyers caused the bids on storage units to reach record levels because people thought that every unit contained hidden treasures like the ones seen on the shows. I think it will be interesting to see if Baggage Battles will have the same effect on the baggage auction business as Storage Wars and Auction Hunters had on the storage auction business. Either way, this should a great niche for auction goers, entrepreneurs and web developers.

So, what do you think of Baggage Battles? Leave your interesting and creative responses below.