(I posted too quickly.) The caskets are locked by a crank that fits a specially shaped do-dad on the casket. So you put the lid down, and then insert the crank handle, spin it for about 20 rotations, and some sort of thinga-ma-jigger locks the lid tight in the process. It won’t just fall and lock, like those old refridgerators that people used to suffocate in; locking a casket is a very deliberate process that really can’t happen accidently. Should this happen to a friend of yours, you would be best advised to assume that you are on a hidden-camera show and really ham it up.
Ah, I see. Damn, I should know that!
Naw. It would have never occured to me if I hadn’t had first-hand experience.
Sorry, I thought this thread was about reincarnation.
perhaps not, but the sons o bitches hit my family with a tab of 12 grand to put my little sister in the ground, and we already owned a plot there. MANY of these people… strike that.
The people I dealt with somehow managed to get $3000 for the casket “to properly honor my late sister’s life” (btw she was a wonderful, well known, incredibly gifted woman 35 years olf). When discussing whether an open casket viewing would be possible or not (at the time they didn’t know), I’ll never forget the funeral director’s words to my emotionally devasted parents, “your daughter was run over by an 18 wheeler”. Blunt, but to the point of course.
IMO there is a propensity for these people to take advantage of people dealing with overwhelming grief, andthe path of least resistance is to just nod through the tears and sign on the dotted line.
oh yeah, that didn’t include the monument.
I’m in the process of researching alternative practises that may be less profit motivated.
salt on fresh wounds, it was for me.
Mr Africanus, I’m wondering what your 5 sided coffin looks like?
I also belive that coffins are resold to people. Any person that burys a $10,000 piece of “eternal tupperware”, is going to think about re-selling it. I know it’s morbid and sacriligious, but think about it, who’s going to bury $10,000 worth of goods just to let it rot (unnoticed) forever?
This has to be a scam atrist’s dream…I sell you a lavish coffin for 10 grand, I show you the ceremony, and then sell the coffin again! What are you going to do, dig up the body? That would be wrong.
If there was ever an industry that profitted so much without people being alive to protest it, this is it, Sorry you died,…your bill is $7,657.00. Incinerating and burying people costs a lot of money. If you die, I’ts gonna cost you, or at least your relatives.
Mr. Africanus’ coffin actually has six sides. IIRC, a casket is rectangular, whilst a coffin has more elbow room.
Hey, pics would be cool, wouldn’t they?
[http://funeraldepot.com/caskets1.htm]Enough caskets to shake a stick at.
ARGH. A well-formed link would be cooler. Mods?
I’d hate to have to pay the late fees on a rented cremated coffin.
I recall several years ago reading about a man in Texas that had purchased a supply of caskets from a distributor for only a few hundred dollars a piece. He was then reselling them to individuals out of a “U-Store” for little or no profit. The funeral home directors in the area threw a major hissy-fit.
If there isn’t any laws prohibiting it, I would think a rental casket is a wonderful idea. It’s a win/win situation for both the consumer and funeral home.
My mom and dad both died a few years ago. Both were modest affairs at the funeral home with very little pomp & circumstance. Mom’s funeral was approx. $7500+ and Dad’s was approx. $8000+. I could have certainly put that money to better use.
Oh, yeah. My bad. Thanks! The five sided ones are for people who’ve been decapitated and the head was subsequently lost…
One of the things I noticed when I worked there was how worked-up people got from the most stupid things. For example, families would find themselves in major arguments over who’s car would go in what order in the proccessional (sp?) to the cemetary. I mean, their loved one is dead and there they are arguing over whose car is first in line. When I mentioned this to someone, a couple of years after I worked there, he pointed out that a funeral is a very important cultural ceremony chock full of emotional content for the families. It’s very important for people that the ritual is done properly. He made a very good point.
Anyway, when somebody buys a $10,000 casket, it may well be that doing so plays an important role in the emotional aspect of the funeral. One might say that a $10,000 casket is nothing more than an ostentatious display of wealth. Well, so is a wedding reception. From female pre-marital chastity to expensive funerals, we are stuck with many obsolete practices left over from our pre-industrial culture.
No one I met in the industry could be characterized as trying to take advantage of people. It could very well be that a funeral director has seen the regret people feel when they try to low-ball such an important ritual, and has decided than when a family has a little money, he’ll try to prevent them making that mistake. Personally, I say that the cheapest non-cardboard casket is good for me. However, I’m not most people. Perhaps it is better to pay a bit extra to make sure the ritual was done “right”.
Where my father has problems, it’s with people who want all the bells and whistles, but don’t want to pay for such things.
He doesn’t try to push more expensive stuff on them. My dad is a HIGHLY respected funeral director, and many people send him thank you notes and even gifts for his help. (Mostly people from our parish)
However, he has worked with some crooked people-you get that anywhere. He also has to deal with a lot of jerks for clients. Like the woman who wanted people to be at the funeral home on Christmas Day, so SHE could spend the day with her mother, who was going to be buried the day after. Or people who won’t leave when they’re supposed to-and they’re not grieving, they’re either gabbing or arguing over the will!
And the worse aspect of his job, is the very complicated and difficult task of dealing with grief. Or when children or young people die. He was telling us about a child who was beaten to death by her mother when he first started out. I was just a baby, and he said when the police lead the mother in in SHACKLES, he had to leave the room to calm down.
It’s not an easy job. It’s highly stressful and NOT extremely financially rewarding.
I’m not ranting-I’m simply trying to defend the profession.
Coffin joke or zombie joke?
Can you rent coffins to zombies?
More than you need to know about retail caskets. I’ve always threatened to buy one to put a wine rack in, because when I need it, somebody’ll be pulling the wine out for a party anyway, and there it is, ready to use.
Costco sells coffins online. They even have expedited shipping too (need burial fast!).
But if you want to buy quality, go for the handmade coffins from the monks of New Melleray Abbey.
You know, this worries me. My FIL is a Costco junkie, and he’s getting on in years. Now I have this mental image of the man coming home with a half-dozen caskets because he’s going to need one soon and the bulk discount was a real deal.
It’s hard to believe, when you look at prices and watch them making money hand over fist, and they can’t even be arsed to put in a decent sized parking lot.
I know, I am only seeing one side of it, the consumer side, but the incredible cost of death is terrifying.
All that being said, when my mom died recently and she was to be cremated they put her in a very cheap pine-ish box for the Hindu last rites.
Another slightly tangential question, while we’re on the topic. Although only 38 years old, my wife has given a great deal of thought to her desired funerary arrangements. She wants to be cremated (doesn’t like the idea of rotting), but she is very sentimental about certain objects so she wants to be cremated with a whole bunch of stuff, ranging from pictures of me, to stuffed animals, to her grandmothers quilt.
Is it possible to be cremated with other (flammable) objects or is it required to just be the unclothed body alone?
Pshaw. “Coffin” has a long history as the standard term in English for a box to contain a corpse, dating back at least to the 16th-century.
“Casket” is a relatively modern alternative. Once meaning a small, decorative box or chest, as a jewel box (think Portia and her three caskets in “The Merchant of Venice”), it came to be a euphemism for coffin. Now it’s so firmly identified with that meaning in American English that the original sense is all but lost and it doesn’t seem like a euphemism at all.
"Caskets! a vile modern phrase, which compels a person … to shrink … from the idea of being buried at all. [Hawthorne, 1863]