If you have been a funeral director for any length of time like I was for 33 years you have probably thought that telling of the experiences you went through would make a good book.  There are probably all kinds of death scenes you’ve been at, interesting family dynamics of those you’ve served, and all sorts of incidents that just seem to happen at the services we conduct. . . . . .Lots of times when I look back at my career I simply shake my head and smile about the experiences that I’ve had.

 

Well, last week I concluded another one of those incidents that could be a chapter in the book. . . . .It all started late this past summer when we (my brother and I) decided it was time to sell a 1960’s era warehouse we had inherited.  We lost our almost 40-year furniture company tenant in the summer of 2024 and decided it would be just best to sell rather than look for a new tenant and continue to operate the building that was soon to need some repair.

 

I talked to a realtor/golf friend and gave him the key to take a look at the warehouse and offer his thoughts on a potential sale price.  And, because we had such a good triple net tenant for decades I could not remember the last time I was inside the building.

 

The realtor called me, suggested a price, and then said, “You’ll have to get those two caskets out of there before you sell though”.  I shook the cobwebs out of my head and remembered that, before my time at the funeral home, the warehouse had been used in part to store extra caskets.

 

I started at the funeral home in 1980 but I can remember as a younger person helping to unload truckloads of caskets out at the warehouse.  My guess is that in the days before 24-hour delivery we bought caskets in much larger quantities and stored extra units at this warehouse.

 

At the end of the day when I went to the warehouse I found the two caskets, sitting on the concrete floor, both slightly damaged which explains why they were left there and, obviously,  forgotten about.  Interestingly, one was a 20 gauge steel casket and the other had a label on the foot end that read, “Solid Bronze – National Casket Company”.   And you could really tell the construction difference if you just tried to nudge the bronze.

 

My guess is that those caskets had sat in that position on the concrete floor of that warehouse for over 50 years.

 

To make a long story short, last week a couple of friends helped me out and we gutted and threw away the interior of the caskets, got two vans, loaded up the caskets and brought them to a large metal recycling plant.  The people at the plant checked the metals for type and determined that the lighter casket was steel, and determined that the heavier casket was “Yellow Brass”.  Fellow funeral directors would call it “painted bronze”.

 

Here’s how the episode worked out financially for me:

1. Steel Casket — 40 total pounds at $0.045 cents per pound equaled a total of $1.80
2. Painted Bronze — 201 total pounds (less approximately 20 lbs. of steel — handles, corners, lugs, interior, etc) for a NET weight of 181 lbs. of Yellow Brass at a rate of $ 2.50 per pound which equaled a total of $452.50

 

I got the money, divided up the cash among my friends who helped and we were on our way!!  And, we also closed the real estate transaction on the warehouse for a little higher total value than the contents we had discovered in it!!!

 

Another couple commercial transactions done. . . . another chapter to the book — that will probably never get written!!

 

More to the Story — The whole episode resulted in getting me curious about the National Casket Company.  From this article in Wikipedia you can discover that the National Casket Company was formed in 1880 by the combination of three different casket companies.  The article mentions that the company had an initial capital value of $3 million in that year.  Just for comparison sake, $3 million in 1880 has the purchasing power of $953 million 145 years later in 2025. . . . .So, it was not a small company.

 

As a matter of fact, the Wikipedia article states that by 1951 National Casket Company was the largest casket company in the world.

 

John Hillenbrand who started the company that eventually became Batesville did not do so until 1884 and, if the Wikipedia article is correct, surpassed National Casket Company sometime after 1951 to become the world’s largest casket company.

 

According to the article, the National Casket Company went through a series of transactions that resulted in the company closing “during or after the 1980’s”. . . . .Quite frankly, the Wikipedia page describes a very interesting history of National Casket Company which includes business sales, some original corporate raiders, and even some purported hijinks by a major shareholder who also happened to be a member of the United States Congress and ended up being convicted on fraud charges.

 

Like I said. . . . .another chapter for the book!!!

 

Related — This article titled “Famed casket company in Oneido recalled” tells more of the National Casket Company story including that the company produced the Mahogany casket for President William McKinley’s visitation in 1901.

Related—  Metal Comparisons from Sequoia Brass and Bronze

Related — Current spot prices for scrap metal from Rockaway Recycling

 

More news from the world of Death Care:

• Coroner cancels “safe” Halloween party due to controversy over rotting corpses.  ABC News 6
• Lakewood Cemetery hosts Fall Colors celebration.  Video news story and print article.  KSTP TV – Minneapolis (MN)

 

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