A closer look
Long before influencers were renting parked private jets for photoshoots, golden-age travelers had a much cheaper method for faking their net worth: luggage labels. By the 1920s, a steamer trunk plastered with first-class stickers from the Cunard Line or grand European hotels was the ultimate symbol of cosmopolitan wealth. It became such a status obsession that a black market emerged. Broke passengers would literally bribe porters for leftover first-class tags or buy counterfeit stickers to slap on their cheap trunks, ensuring their neighbors thought they summered in Monaco instead of Milwaukee.
