Lost and Found Day was officially announced on November 19th, 2012, but the concept of having a place where people can come to possibly recover things they have lost dates back 1805, when Napoleon Bonaparte opened the first lost and found office in Paris. Objects found on the streets of the city could be brought there, and those looking for them could go there to see if their items had been brought in.
Since then, the concept has spread all over the world. Transport for London’s lost property offices collect about 130,000 object every year, ranging from the obvious choices such as mobile phones and wallets to more unexpected and unusual ones, like wedding dresses, urns containing ashes of the deceased, wheelchairs and even kitchen sinks.
- In 2005, London officials found a bag containing two human skulls. Police were alarmed at the grisly find but the skulls turned out to belong, quite legitimately, to an university professor who used them in lectures.
- What kind of person goes around carrying swords under public transportation? Even worse, what kind of person forgets it in the subway? This Samurai Sword was among the items found at a subway station in London and taken to the Transport For London lost property office.
- Luckily the person who found this Peruvian wedding dress returned it to the London Underground lost property. The owner was brought down to tears when she was reunited with her wedding dress, just purchased in Peru.
- The Pixie Lost & Found survey finds the average American spends 2.5 days each year looking for lost items, collectively costing U.S. households $2.7 billion annually in replacement costs.
- When asked which items they misplace at least one a week, the most common lost items (in order) is revealed as – TV remotes (45%), phones (33%), car & keys (28%), glasses (27%), shoes (24%) and wallets/purses (20%)
- Millennials are TWICE as likely as boomers to lose their stuff
- Twice a week, nearly a quarter of Americans misplace their house or car keys and more than half say that misplaced items regularly cause them to be late to work or school
- Multitasking is the most cited cause for misplacing items with almost half of Americans saying trying to juggle more than one task leads to them forgetting where they placed a valuable.
- Despite the battle of the sexes, men and women are equally likely to lose items.
- While 46% of respondents were able to admit that they are the most likely individuals in their household to lose something, 63% fessed up to blaming someone else for a lost item.
- Men are the most likely to put the blame on someone else with 35% saying they assume their spouse has lost a household good instead of themselves. This is compared to less than 30% of women admitting to the same issue.
- An upside to hunting for a missing item is that two out of three adults (69%) shared that they have found another missing item while hunting for something else.
- A supposedly authentic shrunken head is just one of the many oddities that have turned up at a unique store called the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, Alabama. Most of the merchandise comes from unclaimed luggage and cargo. Since 1970 (when the store opened), they’ve recovered such items as a Chinese opium pipe, a 5.6 carat diamond hidden in a sock, vacuum-packed frogs, bag pipes, a suit of armor and a stuffed goose.