MEET SOME OF THE WORLD’S FOREMOST COLLECTORS OF ONE OF THE WORLD’S QUIRKIEST COLLECTIBLES
A prominent sickness bag collector and proponent, retired University of Texas at Austin professor Eli Cox has collected over 370 sickness bags which he calls “Nausivats.”
“I have collected posters, stamps, coins, ticket stubs, and airsick bags...
It was in the mid seventies, and I was in France on a conference, and I took that opportunity to go to Monte Carlo and visit the palace.
And on the wall of it, there was a little window...that had in it a little stand…and in it was a postage stamp. And I said, I will never have a world-class postage stamp collection. What is it I can collect that I can be world class?
AND I HAD THIS STROKE OF GENIUS AND I SAID, AIRSICK BAGS. SO I’VE DEVOTED MYSELF TO THE COLLECTING OF THEM.”
Bruce Kelly is a retired corrections worker in Anchorage, Alaska who maintains Kelly’s World of Airsickness Bags online.
He has amassed over seven thousand bags in a collection many of the world’s top enthusiasts have dropped by to see.
“I was on an international flight and I was bored as hell as usual looking at the seat back in front of me and I noticed the safety cards and I noticed the barf bags like everybody else does. And I thought…
WELL, BARF BAGS, WOULDN’T THAT BE INTERESTING TO COLLECT THESE?
I’M SURE NOBODY HAS EVER THOUGHT OF THIS BEFORE… WHAT A UNIQUE COLLECTION... LITTLE DID I KNOW THAT I WAS CERTAINLY NOT THE FIRST.”
“Upheave Steve” Silberberg has been collecting barf bags since 1982 and hosts a virtual museum that boasts more than 3,000 bags from nearly every airline in the world— and many that don’t exist anymore.
“I’ve always looked for something to collect, and I went through sardine keys and styrofoam wig heads and… Then when I was on a flight in 1981 from Boston to San Francisco, I looked in the seat back and I would love to say a light shown out like in the movies, but it didn’t really, it was like:
OH YOU KNOW WHAT? I BET NOBODY COLLECTS THESE. SO I GRABBED IT AND IT TURNS OUT THAT OTHER PEOPLE COLLECT THEM.”
“Barf Bag Bob” Grove of San Diego is a retired attorney and avid traveler who’s gathered over 1,800 bags since he began collecting in 1967 and was featured in a TV special called “Bizarre Collections” in 2012.
“There’s also a little bit of the counter code, the squeamishness
that comes when people know... They say, “really?”…
Today people are all concerned about what people think about them…
