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How it all began

Well, nowadays it's a bit hard to remember, but I'll do my best. I was an aviation enthusiast since I was a kid. Better say since 14th January 1995, when I've flown for the first time - with ČSA flight OK154 from Prague to Bangkok via Abu Dhabi. Since then, I got totally mad about airplanes. And my mum helped me with that, as she gave me my first book about airplanes, where I quickly learned to identify them.

Time went by, and as a proper enthusiast, I tried to grab everything availible from the airplanes - napkins, stickers, safetycards, timetables and other memorabilia. When I was - I'm not really sure, maybe 10 years old, my parents sent me to my room to clean up my desk. As I was going through all that stuff, I've realised that I have 12 different airsickness bags. And I thought - Hey, that might be fun! I bet nobody collects stuff like this! Since then, I tried to focus on barfbags, also my friends and relatives brought me some, from time to time, mainly my mum, who worked (and still works) as a tour guide.

When I had a huuuuge (at least in my eyes) collection of 45 bags, that might be around year 2001, I was quite bored that evening and thought - Let's look on the internet! Maybe there will be also some weirdo collecting airsickness bags! - and went to my PC, turned on the dial-up connection and went searching. Well, I guess you might imagine my surprise, when I found websites of people like Bruce Kelly, Steve Silberberg or Paul Mundy, with not hundreds, but thousands of airsickness bags. Luckily, I've noticed that little purple button, which was a link to collector's e-mail group at Yahoo. I've joined it, introduced myself - and things started to move. Within days my collection more than doubled - thanks to generous swaps and donations from other collectors (my first swap was with Bruce Kelly, probably current world no. 1), but also thanks to a bit of luck, as I got my hands on new ČSA and Bangkok Airways bags early enough and could swap it worldwide.

Since then, my collection of barfbags started to grow - with a little help of my family, friends, other collectors or sometimes totally random people or other aviation enthusiasts. The problem was, that I had to focus also on other things, mainly my studies and then work life. Therefore, my effort in collecting bags had some quite huge gaps. Now, when I'm finally, and very late, in my eyes, over that magic 1000, I promised to myself I will try a bit harder. Starting with proper evidence, reconstruction of this website, refreshing my contacts, updating my swaplist and, in the near future, I will visit some collectors' conventions abroad - stay tuned for some future trip reports!

So, what to say at the end of the story? Let's wish for a collector's good luck and hope that the pressure of airlines on cutting costs won't ruin this beautiful, yet a bit weird hobby.

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