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  • 标题:Lost treasures
  • 作者:Crowley, Patrick
  • 期刊名称:Trailer Life
  • 印刷版ISSN:0041-0780
  • 出版年度:2003
  • 卷号:Jul 2003
  • 出版社:Affinity Group Inc.

Lost treasures

Crowley, Patrick

RVERS MAY DISCOVER GREAT BARGAINS IN SCOTTSBORO, ALABAMA

David Crawford always gives visitors to his Scottsboro campground plenty of suggestions when they ask him about the attractions in his northeastern Alabama community. He tells them about the underground tours at Russell Cave National Monument, about the mountains and canyons in Buck's Pocket State Park, about how kids love Old MacDonald's Petting Zoo and that history buffs will enjoy the Stevenson Railroad Depot, a Union stronghold during the Civil War. But there's one attraction even visitors from as far away as Europe can't wait to visit.

"They all know about the Unclaimed Baggage Center," says Crawford, who caters to dozens of tourists at Crawford's RV Park. "It's our No. 1 tourist attraction. We get people from all across the country coming to see it. We've even had people from France and England who fly over to the United States, rent an RV and then, while they're traveling the country, come to look at all the lost luggage."

Tucked in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains is the Unclaimed Baggage Center, part salvage operation and part department store. This retailer mines products from luggage lost by airlines or left behind by passengers. The 32-year-old company handles about one million items a year, with 6,000 new pieces of merchandise hitting the store's sales floor each day. This one-a-kind business, a sort of misplaced-baggage heaven, allows clothing, jewelry, shoes, jackets, cameras, golf clubs and more to find new homes with new owners.

"It's like Christmas every day," says Bryan Owens, 43, whose father started the company in 1970. He took over in 1995 and now watches over an operation that attracts more than a million people a year, making it one of Alabama's top tourist attractions.

"People come again and again," says Owens. "You can find a lot of practical merchandise here. But I think people really enjoy going through all the stuff and seeing what new treasures they can find. We have so many new items each day that people never know what they are going to discover."

Doyle Owens was selling insurance in the 1970s when he got the idea to approach two airlines - Eastern and National - and offer to buy the baggage no one had claimed.

"Nobody else was doing it, so he started it as a part-time venture, borrowing $300 from one grandfather and a pickup truck from the other grandfather to get the business going," Bryan Owens says.

Doyle Owens ultimately forged exclusive, long-term contracts with all the major airlines - commercial as well as freight carriers - to buy unclaimed bags and merchandise. Unclaimed Baggage Center does not reveal details about the contracts, such as how much it pays for the merchandise.

About 60 percent of the merchandise is clothing, with the remainder being sporting goods, jewelry, books, eyeglasses and sunglasses, electronic equipment, cameras and luggage, including many designer bags. Owens says there are great deals to be found, including cameras for less than $10 and CDs starting at $3.50; most items are priced 50 to 80 percent below what they would cost new. The company also has a Web site that offers online shopping.

"There's no other store like it," says Donna Campbell, a Scottsboro resident who has been shopping at the center for 20 years. "It's so unique because there are new and different types of merchandise every day. I shop there at least once a week, sometimes more than that. You never know what you are going to find."

She recently spent a lunch hour at the center and found a book she has been searching for, Marie Antoinette: The Journey, by Antonia Fraser. It lists for $35 new and is $24.50 from an online book seller. Campbell paid $5 for it at the center.

"I find deals like that all the time," she says. Among the most unusual items Unclaimed Baggage Center has claimed: diamond and emerald jewelry that fetched up to $15,000, a snow-board, a set of dentures, wedding dresses, airplane parts and even some Egyptian artifacts that were sold at a New York auction house.

"Most of the stuff is pretty standard, but we do see some weird things," Owens noted. The "weird things," such as the dentures, are thrown away. All clothes and garments are dry-cleaned at the center's on-site laundry. And about 25 percent of what Owens buys is given to charity. In the past, he has donated crutches to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, strollers to a teen pregnancy center and clothes to the needy.

Of course, the supply of merchandise for the center is endless. Even though less than 1 percent of all bags are permanently lost by airlines, that still translates to more than 400,000 pieces of luggage annually, according to a joint study by Wichita State and the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

There is also a part of the Unclaimed Baggage Center, which covers more than a city block, where unclaimed air cargo is sold. These are primarily business-to-business shipments that were lost or unclaimed. Present inventory includes automotive items, crafts, textiles, cosmetics and household items.

Even though people ask, the center cannot find specific items lost by travelers or airlines.

"We regret there is no way we can help you find anything you lost while traveling," the center Web site states. "By the time the luggage reaches us, every effort has been made by the airlines to find the rightful owners. This effort by the airlines to return the goods results in a three- to four-month lag before we receive the baggage."

Copyright T L Enterprises, Inc. Jul 2003
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved

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