2 ms·
i was involved in the assset-categorisation of my family's ~130yr old UK funeral directing business prior to it's sale to a "funeral conglomerate" in the mid-90
by ricktdotorg 3y ago
i was involved in the assset-categorisation of my family's ~130yr old UK funeral directing business prior to it's sale to a "funeral conglomerate" in the mid-90s. deep in the basement (of a basement!) in the family "brownstone", we found a fake coffin. seems it was made by the family firm (we used to actually make the coffins back in the day) for a local vaudevillian/magician in the very early 1900s, who never actually came back/paid for it -- which is why i assume we still had it? it was full and structurally complete when we discovered it, worked just fine after being emptied of a few rolls of wool (we assumed for death pillows). i was a teenager then, wish i had had the wherewithal to take some photos! after we dragged it out, we had a good couple of days of fun playing around with it, seeing how it worked, trying it out, and even sleeping in it! TL;dr it had a smoothly-weighted raised sliding false "third bottom" that slid in between two layers that made up the upper two thirds bottom. it was a much darker wood than the usual coffins, which always surprised me. perhaps coffins were much darker a century earlier?