This holiday season, buy the forgotten dreams of the young man in 22-D

This holiday season, buy the forgotten dreams of the young man in 22-D

More people than ever are flying these days. Which means more people than ever are forgetting stuff on airplanes and/or experiencing lost baggage. Did you ever wonder what happens to all of those belongings that go unclaimed?

Chances are it winds up on the shelves of a store in northern Alabama, perhaps the most unique retail outfit an American shopper could visit on this Black Friday. Unclaimed Baggage, as it's called, receives a staggering 7,000 items a day that never made it to their intended destination. The family-owned company then re-sells the best of the best, drawing a million shoppers a year to their sleepy town (population 15,000) out of a facility that "covers more than a city block."

Before you think it's all junk like unwanted scarves, forgotten earbuds and cheap sunglasses, think again: They do a brisk business in laptops, cell phones and iPads. "We've become quite the Apple Store in our own way," Barbara Cantrell, the store's Brand Ambassador, told The New York Times. Other big-ticket items are designer-label clothing, jewelry and high-end watches, like a $60,000 Rolex. Then there's the weird stuff they've come across, like a batch of 50 vacuum-packed frogs, a 19th-Century replica suit of armor, a diamond hidden in a sock, a 4,000-year-old Egyptican burial mask, a live rattlesnake, and a freaking U.S. Air Force missile guidance system (which they returned to the government).

As the missile guidance system example shows, there is of course a screening process:

The lost bags arrive by the tractor-trailer load at our processing facility to be sorted and priced. Our experienced staff sorts out only the best items for the retail floor. Clothes are dry-cleaned and laundered, fine jewelry is cleaned and appraised, and all electronic equipment is tested and cleared of personal data. Of the remaining items about half are thrown away and the other half are donated through our Reclaimed for Good program, helping people around the world. Our goal is to sell, donate, recycle and repurpose everything we can, finding a new home for what was once lost.

The aforementioned Reclaimed for Good program is pretty impressive: They rebuild broken wheelchairs to donate to the handicapped; they've given "hundreds of thousands" of eyeglasses to the Lions Club's global SightFirst program; they donate found medical supplies to developing countries; they send the clothing cast-offs to the Salvation Army; and they're partnered up with Operation Christmas Child, which sends gift boxes to children around the world.

"Business is great," Ms. Cantrell said in the Times article. And as air travel increases, so too should their inventory. People will always forget things on airplanes—and on trains and buses too, the other branches that Unclaimed Baggage plucks from. But it's probably just a matter of time before their lost-luggage in-flow is reduced by a certain technology: GPS-enabled luggage like the Trunkster.

Until that occurs, have a look at how massive their store is: