Our Amazing Find At The Unclaimed Baggage Center In Scottsboro AL

Like TJ Maxx and a thrift store had a love child.

That’s the best way to describe the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, Alabama.

With over 40,000 square feet of floor space and 7,000 new items added to the store each day, it’s an experience to behold.

We visited the store while on our 5 year, 50 state road trip – here’s what it’s like.

History Of The Unclaimed Baggage Center

In 1970, Doyle Owens took out a loan of $300 and headed to the nation’s capital in a pickup truck that he’d borrowed. While in Washington D.C., he used that money to purchase some unclaimed baggage which he then sold from a house he was renting.

Following the success of that initial purchase, he expanded the business with the help of his wife and sons. By building relationships with airlines around the country, Owens’s store concept went from strength to strength.

In 1995, his son Bryan bought the Unclaimed Baggage Center from his father and has since expanded to more than 40,000 square feet.

Where Does Everything Come From?

It’s called the Unclaimed Baggage Center, so is everything that’s sold there unclaimed baggage? Not quite – although a lot of it comes from bags that have been unclaimed from airlines, trains, buses, etc., some of it’s also unclaimed cargo.

Airlines spend 90 days trying to reunite the baggage and cargo with their rightful owners. Anything that doesn’t get collected will often then get sent on to the Unclaimed Baggage Center.

Do They Try Selling Everything They Get From Airlines?

Nope. Anything that could be sold gets put in the store, but they also donate some items and trash others that can’t be used by anyone.

Seeing as a large proportion of what they receive is stuff you can wear, 50,000 clothing items are laundered every single month before being put on sale.

Unclaimed Baggage Center Museum

When entering the store, there’s a TV screen which shows slides of information about the store, including its layout.

The weird and wonderfulness of the Unclaimed Baggage Center starts to the left of the TV. If you grew up in the 80s, you might recognize Hoggle from the movie Labyrinth. This is the original Hoggle from the movie who’s been carefully restored and now greets you as you enter the store.

The entrance area housing Hoggle is also a small museum containing all kinds of strange stuff that the Unclaimed Baggage Center has collected over the years, so take a few minutes to check all that out.

Unclaimed Baggage Center Store

After saying hi to Hoggle, you’ll go through to the main part of the store. On the day we visited, ‘I’m So Excited’ was playing over the loudspeaker as we entered – and excited we were!

The store’s enormous. We knew it’d be big, but it extended farther than we’d been expecting. You start off in the women’s section with clothes – clothes as far as the eye can see.

The price of clothing there is more on the TJ Maxx end of things than a thrift store’s. There’s a much better selection than a thrift store though, with lots of formal wear…

…and even wedding dresses. I’m curious if these were left behind on a plane after a wedding, or if someone’s outfit went missing before their big day.

There’s also a bunch of men and women’s shoes to try on.

There’s a fairly extensive men’s clothing area:

Depending on which rack you’re picking clothes from, you might be able to get some additional discounts.

There’s a surprisingly large selection of men’s socks. There were 5 packs of John Weitz socks for $8.29 which came from an unclaimed cargo shipment…

…bags containing 9 pairs of socks for only $3.29…

…5 packs of Charles Tyrwhitt socks for $10.59 and many more.

It’s not only clothing you can find at the Unclaimed Baggage Center though. There’s all kinds of electronics on offer such as a rack full of headphones. I’m guessing many of these were left on planes rather than necessarily being from lost baggage.

Behind a couple of enclosed cases were cellphones and laptops. The store has a limit on how many of these particular items you can purchase each day, presumably to stop resellers from coming in and buying them all each day.

It was interesting seeing several older Kindles there. I accidentally left my 3rd generation Kindle on an airplane a few years ago and there were several of these models at the Unclaimed Baggage Center. I tried turning on a couple on the off-chance that one of them had been mine, but it looks like they’re reset to factory settings before being sold.

There’s a collection of random electronics along a wall which reminded me of the sort of display you’re more likely to see at a thrift store.

You might be able to find a good deal on electronics at the Unclaimed Baggage Center, but it’s worth researching before buying. Shae’s in the market for a camera lens and there were quite a few available in the store. Amazon had quite a few of them for cheaper though that were brand new and would come with a warranty, so it wasn’t worth buying them while in the store.

On the other hand, there were several Microsoft Surface tablet keyboards available. These are pretty expensive when brand new, but were being sold for only $35.99. That’s even cheaper than buying them used on eBay, so those are potentially a good deal.

There’s all kinds of other miscellaneous stuff you can search through. It wouldn’t be the Unclaimed Baggage Center if there wasn’t any actual unclaimed baggage that you can buy. This section containing suitcases and backpacks was surprisingly small though!

Need a new purse? They’ve got those too.

One of my favorite areas in the store was the used book section. There was some good value there, more on a par with thrift store pricing – or even cheaper. I picked up an Agatha Christie novel and the first book in the Joe Pickett series by CJ Box for only $0.49 each (both were mass-market paperbacks).

There were plenty of recent bestsellers there too – many of which only cost $1.99 – so it’s a great place to pick up some great reading material on the cheap.

One of the best aspects of the book section is that it’s alphabetically sorted and split by genre and format (paperback, hardcover, etc.). That’s much better than many thrift stores where books are simply dumped on the shelves without any kind of order.

Seeing as a lot of this luggage was likely lost on the way to or returning from vacation, there’s a good selection of sunglasses to choose from.

There were a couple of sections I wasn’t expecting to see. There are some guns sold from a locked cabinet…

…and an art section, although I’m not sure how many people would want to buy someone else’s Paint Nite effort.

While walking around the store, be sure to look above all the displays as there’s more of the museum-style pieces adorning the walls.

All this shopping can be thirsty work, so there’s Cups Café in the store if you need any refreshment.

That gives you a good idea of what’s for sale in the store, but that’s not all. There’s even more stuff being sold next door.

Unclaimed Baggage Center Etc.

To the left of the main building is an additional building spread out over three floors which is known as Unclaimed Baggage Center Etc.

As you enter on level 1, the room’s full of children’s clothing.

Heading down to level 2, you come to the home goods section. This had more of a thrift store feel than a TJ Maxx and seemed to have quite a bit of tat.

Down on level 3 there’s a health and beauty section, along with all kinds of other random items.

If you need vitamins, they’ve got you covered.

There was also an unexpectedly large number of boxes of head lice treatment.

Our Amazing Find

Level 3 was also the scene of Shae’s great triumph. We’d been on the lookout for something fun to get from the store as a sort of weird memento. We got rid of nearly everything we owned last year before heading off on the road trip, so it needed to be small so that it could fit in our car with everything else we have left. We only have a $100 budget per day which has to cover everything – accommodation, food, gas, activities, etc. – so it also needed to be cheap.

We’d gotten all the way through the main store and down to level 3 of Unclaimed Baggage Center Etc without finding anything suitable.

But all of a sudden, there it was. Sitting there unassumingly on a shelf was an item we didn’t know existed. That we didn’t know we needed (well, we didn’t need it, but Shae really REALLY wanted it 😉 ). And best of all, would only cost $4.68 with tax.

A dog bikini with a mini beach towel.

Yep, that’s a thing. As you can see from the photo above, Shae was much more excited about it than Truffles when she got to try it on.

Traveling With Pets? No Problem.

Unsurprisingly, the Unclaimed Baggage Center is popular with road trippers like us. It’s not pet-friendly though and, seeing as it’s in Alabama, you can’t just leave your dog in the car because of the heat.

This has presumably come up many times, so their website mentions a nearby doggy-daycare service called Cutie Petooties. The Unclaimed Baggage Center’s website said it cost $10 to drop off your dog while you shopped, but it’s now $12 – still a reasonable cost.

We dropped off Truffles there while we visited the store and had lunch. She seemed to enjoy herself and the workers seemed friendly and professional, so Cutie Petooties is worth considering if you need someone to watch your dog. Just be sure to bring your pet’s up-to-date vaccination records as they’ll need to see a copy of those.

Final Thoughts

The Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, Alabama is well worth a visit. It’s a fun concept for a store and has a great collection of all kinds of goods.

We spent just over an hour there, but you could easily spend more time in the store if you go there to actually shop. And who knows, maybe you’ll find your own hidden gem like a dog bikini.

Speaking of which, if you’ve ever lost a dog bikini on a flight, take solace in knowing that it’s gone to a good home 😉