Blow-up doll, bull's sperm found on London's transit

London's Lost Property Office: a treasure trove of forgetfulness

A lawnmower, a stuffed eagle, a blow-up doll and a human skull: just some of the more unusual items left on London's buses, Underground trains and taxis in the last few years.

Between 600 and 800 items a day end up at the British capital's Lost Property Office (LPO), on Baker Street, the famous home of fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.

The Victorian sleuth has a part to play in the process: Sherlock, the LPO's internal computer system, last year logged nearly 148,000 errant items before they were sorted and stored, waiting for their owners to claim them.

Heading the field of the most lost item are bags, followed by books (25,000 in 2005), then clothes (22,000), ranging from a simple scarf to a wedding dress and even a judge's gown.

Mobile phones -- of which some 14,000 were lost on London's public transport system last year -- are said by LPO workers to be a real headache because many models look so similar.

"When someone comes in to claim a phone, telling us they've lost 'a black Nokia', it really isn't quite enough," said employee Judith Adams.

Common or garden misplaced items include thousands of keys, umbrellas, spectacles and cameras. But over the years, some lost property defies categorisation on the LPO's groaning shelves.

Curiosities include false teeth, prosthetic limbs, crutches, waterskis, a Tibetan bell, a gas mask, a jar of bull's sperm and three dead bats neatly arranged in a box.

How someone "forgot" their 13-foot (four-metre) boat still baffles staff to this day.

For reasons of space, forgetful owners have three months to claim their property, and have to pay a small handling charge. After that the items are sent off for auction, with all proceeds used to cover the LPO's running costs.

But items of a clearly sentimental nature -- such as military medals -- are kept. Earlier this year, staff reunited a man with a funeral urn containing the ashes of his brother. Another lost urn is gathering dust on the shelves.

According to LPO figures, one in two valuable objects is reunited with its owner, one in three bags but only one mobile phone in four, perhaps because often, the owners find it difficult to get in touch.