Found this in the hearse today

[Haasmama]

We took the seat out to get it reupholstered and to asses the repairs needed on the floor. Under the seat, we found this little gem. Anyone know how, where, who to ask to get an age or value for it?


brass2.jpgbrass1.JPGbrass3.jpgbrass4.jpgbrass5.JPGbrass6.jpg

[sgath92]

I have seen "memory tubes" on eBay but couldn't find one just now. Newer ones are usually, but not always glass with a metal cap [and those can be had for 10-25 a piece NIB]. Don't know what an all metal one, or an older one would go for.

[Abnorml]

I believe this was used for the funeral records and placed inside the casket. Maybe in case the casket was exhumed and there was not tombstone or records. I have saw something similar on ebay.

http://www.thecasketdepot.com/meretu.html

[sgath92]

The big problem isn't exhumation but floods. They're good enough at making air tight caskets that they "float" in water and will pop out of the ground Poltergeist-style if the soil is quickly put underwater. Vaults will offer some help against this but its not uncommon for flash flooding to send a bunch of caskets out of a cemetery & down river.



Then eventually someone has to go get them, and know who is who.

[60Crown]

Haasmama, I've never seen a memory tube like that. Thank you for sharing. Now I have something else to look for @ shows and such for my funeral-related showcase.

sgath92 - That's a wicked image. Boston area?

[sgath92]

sgath92 - That's a wicked image. Boston area?

No idea where it was taken. Used to know, as I had read the story this picture went to a few years back but I don't remember. At the time the picture found its way onto news sites all across the country so it might not be from the Boston area.

There was a really neat B&W picture of this type of thing I saw in a newspaper when I was little, but I was never able to find that picture again. A house was on a small hill all by itself, with maybe 75+ caskets forming a neat circle around the house. Must have been taken by a helicopter. What happened was there was some flood somewhere that had risen to the level of the house and then receded leaving caskets all around it. Apparently there was a large cemetery several miles up stream and had nearly a whole section uprooted & sent down river. Since the house wasn't submerged entirely it was the "island" that kept it all from going further downstream.

[Guest]

that kind of flooding happened in south georgia not too long ago.

[60Crown]

I only guessed Boston as that was in the file extension. Would be surprised if it happened that far north!

[Haasmama]

"I believe this was used for the funeral records and placed inside the casket."

This was our guess. I want to do some more research-maybe findout what home used the coach. There is a form number on the bottom of the parchment that may help me out. Glad that the form was blank, but would have been very enlightening to have the information listed.

Atti: This tube is only 3.5" long and 5/8" wide. Hope that one comes your way.

All: Glad to know that there is some way of sending me home should my carcass end up ass up in a flood. I think there was some floating caskets after Katrina too. There is also a town here in AZ in the late 1800 that was flooded and washed the cemetary away. Of course, many of the buried were never identified.

[northgahearse]

[QUOTE



[/QUOTE]

Hurricane Ike Sept 2008 Texas

[60Crown]

Not to get too far OT but the painted blue line above my hat shows how far the entire island of Galveston was underwater.



Beautiful Victorian architecture with many buildings remaining vacant since Ike. Have several images of a killer period hot rod that survived being under 8' of water on Galveston.

[chestypuller]

good to know you can still go on a boat ride when your dead

[sgath92]

"I believe this was used for the funeral records and placed inside the casket."

Sort of, they slide into the outside of the casket so that the data can be retrieved without popping open the lid [last thing you want to do after finding a casket that floated a few miles down river, and was left in a sunny field for a few weeks]. It doesn't go inside, as in where the body is.

[pyro]

You think the shop would pull a vacuum to stop the casket from popping up.