Samurai swords, WWII flight jacket, meteorite among items left behind by travelers: Unclaimed Baggage report
Travelers left millions of items behind in 2025, including things as eccentric as a samurai sword, as expensive as diamond earrings, and as historic as a World War II flight jacket, according to the new Unclaimed Baggage report.
Unclaimed Baggage, which calls itself the nation’s only retailer of lost luggage, released its annual Found Report on Thursday, listing its most interesting finds from luggage that airports couldn’t get back to passengers.
"Each year, I am amazed at the treasures discovered in luggage and what it reveals about our society," Bryan Owens, the company's CEO, said in a statement. "After more than 55 years of reclaiming the lost and rejected for good, we often believe we've seen it all. But then we uncover something like a matching set of Samurai swords, a fully-assembled robot, a Dolce & Gabbana jeweled jacket or gold-plated golf clubs, and we are reminded of why the annual 'Found Report' exists."
Fox News Digital has reached out to Unclaimed Baggage for comment.
The report said that while 99.9% of checked bags eventually get back to their owner, "a rare few take a detour—one that ends in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Scottsboro, Alabama," the location of the Unclaimed Baggage store.
The top 10 finds for the company’s third annual report include a robot, a bionic knee, 10K gold teeth grills, a meteorite, a pair of fire poi used for fire dancing, an Australian one-ounce pure gold bar, matching set of samurai swords, a beekeeping suit, gold-plated golf clubs and a teak didgeridoo.
The top five most expensive finds include white diamond earrings worth an estimated more than $43,000, a stainless steel Rolex watch with 18k yellow gold and diamond dial worth around $35,000, a Tosca bass clarinet worth $17,500, a Balenciaga leather jacket worth $12,500 and a T530 thermal camera valued at more than $12,000.
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What the report described as "weird" finds include a taxidermy deer form, frog purse, pre-World War I U.S. Army bayonet, a giant stuffed goose, a long bone specimen, an armadillo purse, a 12-pack case of sardines, a fake skeleton, a suitcase filled with rat poison, and a feather bow tie.
The top sports find was signed boxing gloves from undefeated boxing champion Terence Crawford, the top fashion find was Miss North Dakota USA 2025’s state costume designed by Ryan Castillo, and the top find from around the world was a Tibetan singing bowl.
A 1960s Ken doll complete with carrying case was the top pop culture find, vintage cassette tapes of Elvis and Bobby Helms’ Jingle Bell Rock made the top musical find, and an 1893 commemorative coin made the top currency find.
The top historical find was a U.S. Army Air Force A-2 leather flight jacket and the top tech find was a 1900s Kellogg candlestick telephone.
The company noticed trends in the baggage of travelers packing "more pop collectibles" like Labubus "than ever, there was a "shift toward attainable luxury … without the premium price tag," many packed books, especially "The Housemaid" author Freida McFadden, and more gold traveled than they’d seen "in years."
"From 24K dice to gold-plated golf clubs, this precious metal showed up in suitcases as both a statement and a store of value," the report said.
Last year, Owens told Fox News that the company recycles about one-third of the items, and gives another third to charity.
At the time, Owens said one of the strangest things he’d seen was a "well-traveled, almost wornout Gucci suitcase that was packed full of Egyptian artifacts that went back to 1500 BC."
Owens added that the airlines "put a lot of effort" into reuniting bags with their owners because "it’s much more to their advantage economically to reunite you with your bag than to sell us your unclaimed bags."