From the wealth of interesting responses in an FT forum thread I've been trying to gather a method for luggage identification. I have thought about it for a long time but none of the solutions offered in that thread is fulfilling all ten "commandments". If you try to apply the criteria below, what would be the perfect solution? Can you help?

1. It should make the bag "unique". This means it must be so special and individualized that no one else has the same significant identifier.

2. It must be seen from afar.

3. It must be visible from any side and no matter how it is carried. If you put an x only on one side of your suitcase, the suitcase might lay on that side on the carousel. If you wrap just the handle and someone carries it away in his hand, you don't see the identifier anymore.

4. It must be hard enough to remove that people don't bother to remove it or that it doesn't come off easily. But on the other hand it must be easy enough for you to remove without damage or stains to the case.

5. It must not make the bag more likely to be caught in the mechanics of the carousel. This would mean most dangling stuff is out. E.g. zipper extensions.

6. It should not make your bag look ridiculous or ugly or insulting to anyone.

7. It must offer at least two or three layers of redundancy, so that it makes it more unique and if one layer gets removed the others are still there.

8. It should be rather a cheap fix and not make your bag look more tempting for thieves. So Platinum card luggage tags and the likes are out, too.

9. It should be easily described to and easily recognized by strangers who have to look for your suitcase. Simpler is better. For example if you say there is a big green heart on the suitcase, that is easy to describe and easily recognized.

10. It should be "forgery" proof, meaning that ideally it would link the bag to you without giving away your identity directly.

Possible solutions:

Having your initials and possibly a number embroidered or stamped directly onto the luggage in a standout color and on at least four sides would be close to ideal. However, this is not easy to achieve. On a hard-sided suitcase one can glue on an engraved plaque. It's not easy to remove but that wouldn't matter because it would look ok. Some soft-sided bags have leather tags that one can emboss. These are not really flashy enough, though, and they are only on one side. To make it immediately apparent no matter from which side you look at it, you need an identifier on four sides. But it is difficult to sew a tag on a robust nylon bag or to insert the entire bag into an embroidery machine.

So one could add some day-glo duct tape and actually use an indelible marker to put one's initials and a number on them. The number serves as an additional identifier because the idea is simple and other people with the same initials could have the same idea. The number could be your favorite number or actually a different number for each bag. This way one could tell the claim agent to look for two bags that are marked for example tfar1 and tfar2, in the unfortunate case both got lost.

To add another layer of redundancy one could make a shape like a triangle or square with the tape. Or actually put three thin stripes around the handle.

The problem with the duct-tape is that it is easily removed and also doesn't look super classy, at least in my eyes.

As usual, this is just my anal-ytical mode of thinking. In reality, I've never really had a problem identifying my bags because those that I check in are rather unusual, there is a big Rimowa alu case, a huge Mandarina Duck black nylon case with rubber ribs, a rather big Eagle Creek Super Trunk and a somewhat less rare Samsonite DLX Garment bag. I have never seen the same bag on a carousel in all my travels. Still, being a perfectionist, this is a nice brain exercise. I am also thinking of which methods I could use if ever my somewhat more common carry-on bags were to be checked in.

I will most likely also get a few tamper tabs, see here:

http://www.tampertab.com/

Till

This doesn't fulfill all of the commandments, but here's what we've done in the past:

We purchased rolls of thin (approx 1" wide) neon pink or orange plastic ribbon (think caution tape-like). We went to town tying strips of the ribbon onto all handles so they were completely covered and then trimmed all the ends so they wouldn't be caught on anything. You can see the neon colors from a mile away! This worked especially well for our last cruise. When we disembarked, all our our luggage had been grouped together due to the matching handles. Our identifying information was on more discrete luggage tags that could be seen upon closer inspection. It would take some effort to remove the ribbons as they were all tied individually.

It may not be the most ideal or professional solution, but we've never had anyone touch our luggage or mistake it for their own!

In other words, this completely violates commandment 6! Unless of course, you're looking to add a little color to you bag...

Hi Mandy,

yeah, the ribbon and day-glo duct tape around the handles works quite alright. Except that commandments 1 and 7 are also not fully respected. See even something as mundane as luggage commandments is hard to follow. ;) It's really quite a riddle if you want to fully respond to all the commandments. Not easy to do with an ordinary suitcase and even harder with a soft-sided one.

I just don't know how the orange tape is going to look on my pretty BR235x. :( I should dare it and try it out.

If a person is 'traveling light' there's really no need to get into an intensive study of 'how to make your checked luggage more identifiable'.

Jerry, that's obvious and I say so in my post. The thing is that sometimes even light travelers will need to take a suitcase and check it in. And sometimes even light travelers might get busted by an over-zealous gate agent and be told they have to check in their bags, be it for weight or dimensions reasons.

So if you engage in the exercise, which solution can you come up with. Try it out, it's really not easy.

On occasion, and this is a rare case, I've had to check in a large duffel bag for sailing or climbing gear or a business bag with handouts, pamphlets, etc and never have had to put caution stickers, extra tape, signs or insignias on the checked bag. Sure, an extra bag can happen on occasion... my oversight. But for the past few years, I go as lightly as possible. Usually one bag (Air Boss) or one small duffel like a Beano PR5.

one possibility, if you have the time and skill would be to print out designs (or make your own if you're artistic enough) and stencil them onto the bag with fabric paint. of course, this violates rule #4 but assuming that you like the designs you choose and they came out well you might not want to remove them :), a similar thing could be done with embroidered patches that you sew on.

one option for hard bags would be to find bumper-stickers that you like and just plaster them all over the bag.

The stencil and paint method is actually what I will resort to. I already downloaded a special stencil font. It is the font used on air craft and cargo crates in Germany. Very fitting, no? I intend to put my initials and a number on each bag I want to mark. I will print self-adhesive labels and put them on the bag as a stencil. For color I intend to use a nice day-glo orange, possibly with some light reflective beads mixed in.

It will actually look stylish and thus will not need to be removed. That said, one might still be able to remove that kind of paint with a solvent. Perhaps the bags base material would lose some color in the process but it wouldn't etch through the material.

This would pretty well cover all ten commandments. I just haven't had the time to do it yet.