Airline travel bag

Airline travel bag
Made in Hong Kong, 1960s

Airline bags have become SO popular and collectable that there are now reproductions of classic Qantas bags- made in China, c. 2014- being sold for crazy prices on EBay. A REAL Qantas travel bag should cost in the order of $AU100 – but a repro? That should go for ten bucks [that’s 2 bucks for materials & assembly, 1 buck to ship it, and 7 dollars or 70% profit to the seller.] AND it should be clearly marked as a repro.

So- how to tell a fake? Well, take this Orbitour travel bag for example. It has its original sticker inside:

‘Nylon Coated Plastic
Made In Hong Kong”.

Sporting an original sticker, and made in Hong Kong [rather than China]; plus – it has some stitching missing on one handle and a little on the zip. Repros are startlingly perfect, looking like a facsimile of the original. You can’t fake age!

And the colour- that super cobalt blue with slightly wonky white font – it’s correct for the 60s.

I’ve teamed the Orbitours bag with an old 40s school case. It’s had some repair work- new rivets hold a new internal timber frame to the lid, but the locks and hinges and metal handle are all still original and working. It was made by the ‘American Bag Stores, Travelling Goods Specialists’, in Australia [as described on the internal label.] Talk about an original!

The Orbitours bag [Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane] is for sale: $AU55
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The old school case is for sale: $AU45
Buy Now