I began collecting Air Sickness Bags in 1981 when I was in
college. A year into collecting, a
Freshman named George Chen joined the Fraternity I was in (not the Fraternity of barf bag collectors) and when he learned
of my budding collection, he said he knew someone else who already collected
barf bags. He mentioned this a few times
during the year but I never found out anything more about the mystery
collector.
Almost 35 years later, in May of 2015, I received an e-mail
out of the blue from a physician named Andrew Angel. He said he had been an air sickness bag
collector for many years and knew my friend George. He said that the time had come for him to
part with his collection and let someone else curate it.
As we both live in the Boston area, I was able to meet Mr.
Angel in Somerville, MA on June 3rd to discuss his collection and
ultimately take possession of it. His
collection of old and rare bags was extensive and a joy to behold. It contained bags from countries that don’t
even exist anymore such as Air Ceylon and most of these bags were still in
excellent condition. [As an aside, he
also collected Doggie Bags (for taking home leftovers, not for canine
excrement)].
During our animated meeting, I found out that Mr. Angel had
written to Scandinavian Air System (SAS) in 1978 to see if they would send him
a few bags to bolster his then nascent collection. The response he received was better than he
could have imagined.
Not only did SAS send him some sample bags, they also sent
him the entire collection of a Mr. Robert Pugh who had recently decided to stop
collecting Air Sickness Bags himself in around 1977. Several of these bags are ones that I have
never seen in any collection, much less have myself, so you can imagine how
exciting I found this piece of aviation history to be. Mr. Angel also still had a copy of the SAS
response letter which you can see here.
As Mr. Angel had been entrusted with Mr. Pugh’s collection,
I have been entrusted with both collections and will do my best to curate these
rare relics to the best of my ability. I
want to thank Mr. Angel (and Mr. Pugh) and should probably start thinking about
succession for whenever I am no longer able to collect.
