It wasn’t exactly a pine box but it was wooden. The auction house had positioned the coffin upright, as if it were a closet waiting to be stepped into instead of a box ready to take you home.
The coffin had been placed away from the rest of the furniture but near the front entrance door, so there was no way to miss it. It looked as if it had not been used – thank goodness! – and it bore a clean but faded light-blue lining.
There was nothing fancy about the adult-size coffin, neither inside nor outside. I assumed it was a coffin because it held four wooden handles on its longest sides ostensibly for carrying. Its color was a muddy brown, not smooth and shiny with brass handles like many of the newer coffins.
This one appeared to have been around for a long time and may possibly have been handmade. There was duct tape around the four corners of its top, mimicking the shape of its rectangular body.
It was a far cry from the handmade pine boxes made by Piedmont Pine Coffins in North Carolina. Don Byrne makes what he calls “green” burial coffins, and he promotes green funerals (without the fancy limos, white-gloved attendants and high prices).
His handmade raw-pine boxes come with no adornments, and the only color is that of the natural wood. They’re so clean that sometimes family members write messages on them. Such simplicity seems to be the point. The coffins are meant to turn to dust the same way as our bodies do.
Perhaps the one at auction would do the same, eventually.
Seeing the coffin was not surprising; coffins tend to show up at auction from time to time. Once, another auction house sold several from Ghana that were made in unusual shapes: beer bottles, a flour sack and small animals. Those were, at least, interesting because of their uniqueness.
Another auction house sold a coffin clock purported to be from the popular movie “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” It was obviously not “that” famous clock.
The one at this auction had none of the cachet of those coffins. Any obviously-made-for-a-human-body coffin would make a good conversation piece or a Halloween prop for the front lawn. In this case, you just have to make sure that its heavy lid didn’t close shut on anyone.
How would you re-purpose a coffin?
