Tag - Baggage Battles

Battle Baggage: And the Dufus Award Goes To…

Mark Baggage Battles

Season finale of Baggage Battles proved one thing: You don’t need brains to bid, just bucks. Auction was held in the northwestern Bayou of Louisiana.

Farm estate sale with five barns loaded with collectibles, mystery trunks, and one huge locked shed ready for the highest bidder to steal for a deal.

Let’s start with Sally and Laurence. Two items that drew their attention: an old fashion wooden Zenith radio they won for $75. Really? Seriously?

Out of the plethora of Americana collectibles they went for a less-than-mint condition radio. In all fairness the team did buy a mystery box for $20.

Stop the train!

Can you call it a mystery box if it’s an open box? You could see Sally pick through the items inside the open box before the auction. That’s why the S&L team won 3rd place in this episode’s Dufus Award. Please give the television audience more credit. We can SEE you dig through the box, Sally. Doh!

Amidst the junk inside the box was a penny mechanical bank which dated back to the early 1900s. It was in fair condition and appraised around $500.

Slick Billy missed the memo to dress casual but maybe without a jacket that was casual for him. He had his eye on two items: an old military trunk and a small wooden box. Billy stated twice he was ready to retire for the rest of his life. Put that on hold, for now.

Military trunk he won for $150 was a bust. He found a traveling optometrist kit inside along with few old magazines and a raccoon (don’t ask). Billy thought he could sell the antique traveling kit for $350. There’s a very small market for that type of collectible. Good luck with that.

Billy also won the wooden box for $200. Quite a gamble but it paid off. It was a Voltamp electric shock therapy kit. Why does that item sound like something Billy should keep…

Billy took the Voltamp to have it appraised by Mysterion who manages a store that looked like a cousin to Ripley’s Believe It Or Not museum, but not in a good way. Mysterion appraised the kit around $800, if it worked.

So how do you test it to see if an antique electric shock therapy kit works? Test it on each other - Doh!

Billy held the hand rods while Mysterion turned on the machine. JOLT! Billy was wickedly amused as was Mysterion. So much so they both shocked each other for fun. That’s when the show went from informative to creepy in zero to 30 seconds.

Hot diggity dog now it’s time to review our Dufus Award winner, Mark. His motto, “Sometimes you get. Sometimes you get got.”

Dufus move #1 – Mark stood on top of a plastic crate to peer into the locked storage shed. As he stepped one foot off the crate, the other foot crashed into the center and broke it. Doh!

Dufus move #2 – Mark had his sites set on winning a red Texaco sign, however, when the bid came for that item, the auctioneer had switched its place with another item unbeknown to Mark. He won a totally worthless antique fan for $150. Doh!

Dufus move #3 – Mark jumped the bid on the storage shed to $550. Inside was not the Holy Grail but a shed full of empty boxes within empty boxes. Doh! (I didn’t mention the fact he tried to use bolt cutters to cut the lock when a man came with a key – Double Doh!)

Poor sap. Mark sat on what looked like an adult potty chair. Yep, that summed up that experience. He did however discover one saving grace; an old 30s-50s RCA microphone.

Mark had it appraised at a local radio station. It’s a ribbon microphone. Called that because there’s a very delicate ribbon inside and if damaged, renders the microphone useless. Kermit, the radio DJ (not the frog) had Mark read a script to test the microphone. Hot diggity dog, it worked!

Projected profits:

Billy - $800
Sally & Laurence - $555
Mark – loss of $100

Mark at this auction, you get got.

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.