State-Run Stores Sell Confiscated TSA Contraband

Big discounts on other people's stuff

Last year the Transportation Security Administration collected 888,000 items—from knives and scissors to snow globes and sunglasses—that were confiscated or left behind by airline passengers as they boarded their flights.

But airport contraband has an afterlife.

It ends up in state-run stores, where thrifty customers can rummage through bins of objects from the TSA's no-fly list. In warehouses around the country, bargain-seekers browse through crates of knives, tools and even box cutters, the weapon used in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Everything is sold at a steep discount, sometimes for $1 apiece, and sometimes by the pound.

H/T Mark Sletten