Airport Pen Theft?

[C-town]

I'm going on a plane on Thursday and was going to put my pen case full of pens in my suitcase. Is there any chance of it being stolen in baggage?

[httpmom]

I travel a lot and I never put my pens in checked baggage. I always carry them on with me so I can use them while at the same time keep my eyes on them. I have never had a problem going through security either. It's OK to stab someone with a three hundred dollar fountain pen but not with a nail clipper, I guess.

[stacybean]

I travel with carry on luggage only nowadays but I would never let anything of value (pens!!!) out of my sight in checked luggage. Happy travels!

[mmg122]

Definitely agree with httpmom and stacybean. I keep mine in my carry on bag. I've lost two check in bags and had one thoroughly destroyed over my many years of travel. The destroyed bag fell off the baggage truck and was then run over by said truck. You should keep anything important to you or irreplaceable on your person...especially in airports.

[Uncial]

Take cheap pens

[Sasha Royale]

I'm going on a plane on Thursday and was going to put my pen case full of pens in my suitcase. Is there any chance of it being stolen in baggage?

 

Yes !

Would you put your I-phone or wallet in checked luggage, as well ?

[rwilsonedn]

A quote from the TSA Web site: "Do not pack jewelry, cash, computers, electronics, or fragile items in your checked baggage." That pretty well says it all. In addition, the site says that if there is a sealed or wrapped container in your checked baggage, they will at their discretion open it to see what is inside.

So, yes. And your chance of getting a fair compensation is about zero.

ron

[Frank C]

A friend of mine used to work at an airport. He said the security guys all showed up in the lunch room with a pocket full of small items they had "confiscated" from people's checked luggage. They were for sale for nominal fees. A favorite was Dupont Lighters.

[Runnin_Ute]

Carry on for sure.

[ethernautrix]

My last flight out of California, I had all my hard-to-replace things in my carry-on, which weighed 23 pounds. I didn't know that the limit was 16. Airline reps came around with hand-held scales at the gate, and when I was told I would have to check my bag, I gasped. "But... but... I NEED these things with me! I don't have another bag...." Short version: I was given a pass, for which I was grateful. If I had believed my things would have been safe in my checked luggage, I would have packed them in there.

 

I'm usually very careful about size and weight limits. On one of my flights out of California, booked on one airline with a 70-pound checked luggage limit, I found out at check-in at the partner airline, which I hadn't noticed that I would be flying (it was at an extremely stressful time, including moving out of my apartment), that the limit was 50 pounds. My checked luggage weighed 53 or 54 pounds. I was charged $150 for that.

 

Same airline (although the latter flight was not with the partner). I was more relieved about being able to keep my carry-on (my pens! Not just my dailies... my PENS!) than not being charged.

 

Point is: I would sooner trust sending my pens via USPS than packing them in checked luggage.

Edited July 28, 2015 by ethernautrix

[Buzz_130]

Carry them with you! When my family moved back from Japan, we bought two 70 pen travel cases and packed these items in carry on bags back to Washington, DC. Definitely worth the added expense of buying new cases to make sure the pens arrived with me.

 

Buzz

[______Zaphod_Beeblebrox]

I'm going on a plane on Thursday and was going to put my pen case full of pens in my suitcase. Is there any chance of it being stolen in baggage?

There is always a chance!

[Drawing61]

Treat them as you would your children.

[C-town]

Can they confiscate them at security if I have them in my carry on?

[langere]

They can do anything they want at security. But it is unlikely that they would confiscate fountain pens. I have never heard of anything like that.

 

Erick

[PS104]

I'm going on a plane on Thursday and was going to put my pen case full of pens in my suitcase. Is there any chance of it being stolen in baggage?

It seems that the people chosen to enforce security are the biggest lawbreakers. In addition, there are no cameras in the luggage hold, last I heard.

 

A friend of mine used to work at an airport. He said the security guys all showed up in the lunch room with a pocket full of small items they had "confiscated" from people's checked luggage. They were for sale for nominal fees. A favorite was Dupont Lighters.

Wonder what a Dupont lighter sells for

[Oggie]

We had a bag stolen from the baggage belt a few years ago. It was located in an unsecured area of the airport and near an exit. We watched Craigslist for a while but never saw the bag or contents again.

[gerigo]

I travel ALL the time, too much in fact. Already at 80k miles and it's only the end of July . I carry my pens with me all the time. It's my favorite way to relax both on long haul flights and also at the end of a particularly grueling day. I have never had any problems with security and I traveled through Asia and Latin America this year. There was only one instance in Tokyo when the security lady wanted to make sure they were really all pens. I had 10 pens with me, and she had me remove each pen and uncap them. She relented after the particularly complicated Stipula DaVinci .

[inkstainedruth]

A friend of mine used to work at an airport. He said the security guys all showed up in the lunch room with a pocket full of small items they had "confiscated" from people's checked luggage. They were for sale for nominal fees. A favorite was Dupont Lighters.

I was thinking about the story on CBS Sunday Morning a few years ago about this store that resells items confiscated at baggage claim, or in luggage that was never claimed for some reason. I looked up the store, which has the official name of "Unclaimed Baggage Center" but has the nickname of "the land of lost luggage". It's in Scottsboro, Alabama. This thread is making me wonder what pens have turned up there over the years (and also if that's where the TSA in Spokane, WA sent my confiscated facial cleanser and astringent for being over the 3 oz. maximum -- the 4 ink vials in my purse? No one even blinked. And that was in Pittsburgh, Midway in Chicago, Spokane or Denver.

So, to the OP -- I would say only bring the pens you really need with you, and keep them on your person or in carry-on luggage. My parents used to travel a lot and my mom always made sure that there was a change of clothes in their carry-on luggage -- just in case.

There's nothing like the joy and excitement of getting to your hotel in Luxor, Egypt -- after an entire busload of tourist have been taken to the wrong hotel *first* -- only to discover that two family members didn't make the mad dash to the plane before the Cairo airport closed for security (this was in the spring of 1979, during the signing of the Camp David Accords) AND that the only suitcase out of four that made it on the plane belonged to one of those two family members. My dad's clothes and electric razor didn't do my mom and me a whole lot of good....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth