Vintage Casket

[Phil]

Don't know if this is the right place for this, but we just retrieved a pine casket (vintage 1920?) from an old carriage house. I posted some photos here (http://halloweentinkering.googlepages.com/thecasket).
The carriage house is dilapidated and will be torn down. This casket had been tucked up in the rafters years ago. It surprised me that it had a black fabric exterior and crude interior upholstery.

[Revenant]

Too bad it was empty... that woulda been a MAJOR prop score! :xbones:

[Sickie Ickie]

LOL what a conversation piece!

[Darkside]

too cool

[Lilly]

too cool is right ..woohoo

[Phil]

closer inspection tonight - interior fabric and straw padding has housed many rodents and at least one snake. we will have to tear everything out and give it a good cleaning. still debating whether to reupholster, just as we are debating which room in the house it will go in.

[Spooklights]

Wow! How neat is that! You know, I bet you could come up with a neat backstory for your haunt; about how the coffin got up into the rafters.

[scareme]

Cool find. You plan on keeping it in the house, what does the wife say?

[Dr Morbius]

Would make a nifty coffee table.

[Lauriebeast]

What a great score! I would advise that you reupholster though. Lotsa bad stuff in that fabric from rodent droppings, not to mention dust mites.

[Phil]

Cleaned it up this morning and posted some photos here (http://halloweentinkering.googlepages.com/casketanatomy). Included dimensions just in case.
The history of the thing will definitely make a great backstory. My wife is into Halloween almost as bad as I am. The big question will be how clean I can get it as to whether it turns into a coffin table for the living room.
For the record, we did contact the local historical society and no one was interested in preserving it.

[Lauriebeast]

This really is a beauty and those thumbscrews are an added bonus. Congrats on a great find!

[Vlad]

A very neat grouping of finds Phil, and thank you very much for sharing. It's also a great reminder that not all coffins were toe pinchers, or the more standard curved top models of today.

[slightlymad]

Nice not only a great find but with a story to boot

[Haunted Bayou]

Way kewl!
I wish I could find an artifact like that.

[Phil]

Thank you all for the kind comments. It is sheer luck to run into something like this, and I've been like a kid on Christmas morning since hearing about it. Sharing it with you has made it even better.
According to some of the old timers in this area, this was the prevalent style of coffin for 'common folk'. Apparently embalming and toe-pinchers were for the rich in early 1900s Virginia.

[Lady Nyxie]

This was neat. Loved the whole thing. Glad you did look into preservation.

You should have taken it to the Antiques Road Show (in original condition of course... cleaning often results in a loss of monetary value). :-)

[Frighteners Entertainment]

It cleaned up very nicely.