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A gorilla skull.
Image: zvg/Fundsachenverkauf
When it comes to lost and found items in Switzerland, hardly anyone knows the subject as well as he does: Roland Widmer founded the Lost and Found Shop over 20 years ago, which now operates one store in Zurich Wollishofen and one in Lucerne. This is where lost items from public transportation or airports end up if they haven’t been claimed by their owners within the prescribed time limit.
200,000 new items are added every month. “It’s unbelievable what people leave behind,” says Widmer, who sold his business last year but still works as an assistant to the new owner. The most common items left behind are all kinds of glasses and cases for in-ear headphones, he says. “We have boxes full of them.”
But time and again, passengers also leave more unusual items behind on public transit. You can see some of them in the photo gallery above. With certain items, one can’t help but suspect that they weren’t forgotten but left behind on purpose.
“I don’t even know where to start,” says Roland Widmer when asked what was the most unusual item ever left behind on a train, tram, or plane in Switzerland and never claimed. He lists a few:
Breast implants have also been turned in on several occasions. “A woman bought two implants in their original packaging from us and took them to her doctor,” says Roland Widmer. “The doctor then called us to make sure everything was in order with the implants. Since they were still in their packaging and the expiration date hadn’t passed yet, he went ahead and inserted them into the woman.”
Once, Roland Widmer found a full 6.9 kilos of cocaine in an abandoned suitcase. “The suitcase already had a price tag on it and was ready for sale,” he says. “But when I picked it up, I was surprised by the weight.” When he removed the bottom of the suitcase, he discovered the packages and alerted the police. “A few weeks later, a couple of police officers stopped by and gave us a bottle of wine as a thank-you,” he recalls.
Especially when it comes to personal items like urns filled with ashes, Widmer does everything he can to track down the relatives. “Of course, we don’t want to sell urns, nor do we want to throw them in the dumpster,” he says. For urns whose origin he cannot trace, he has an arrangement with a pastor friend who takes the urns and buries them anonymously in a cemetery.
Roland Widmer explains the flood of lost and found items by noting that because people are more mobile today, they often don’t even know where they last held their glasses or the little box containing Grandma’s gallstones. Since there is no standardized system for lost and found items in Switzerland for cost reasons—instead, every city and every transportation company operates its own lost and found office—it happens that people inquire at the wrong place.
What may come as a surprise: many paintings and sculptures are also left behind on public transportation or at the airport and never claimed. “Art connoisseurs rarely end up at the lost and found sale,” says Roland Widmer. That’s why the 67-year-old is organizing the “Fundkunst” exhibition in Lucerne, running through June 20. With this pop-up store, he also hopes to find new homes for some of these treasures.
“Fundkunst” exhibition, through June 20, Kapellenplatz 5, Lucerne
Every month, hundreds of thousands of lost items end up in lost and found offices. Some are never claimed. Among them are always objects that amaze even experienced staff.
