Latest caskets, gurneys, urns featured at funeral director’s trade show

Angie Wagner

Thursday, Oct. 9, 1997 | 9:57 a.m.

While some funeral directors tried out the latest gurneys, others ran their hands over steel coffins and fingered the cotton linings -- ahhh, soft.

It was enough to give you a few shivers, but gloomy or not, the National Funeral Directors Association's trade show in Las Vegas this week attracted more than 6,000 undertakers.

Lightweight vaults, spiffier hearses, embalming chemicals and decorative urns filled the exhibit hall as sellers displayed their dreary wares.

"I think we have the best casket line," Bill Wilcock, president of The York Group Inc., said Monday.

Wilcock said the Houston company's new compact display of coffins is a breakthrough for funeral homes, which often lack enough space for every coffin available.

In York's display, partial caskets fit into a makeshift wall with drawers featuring the available linings. Because so many caskets are on one wall, with the prices clearly in sight, Wilcock believes families planning funerals will feel more comfortable.

"It's like Home Depot, when I buy a drill -- good, better, best," he said, pointing to the different prices of steel caskets.

York decided to display the caskets closed because people seem to be put off when viewing a large, open casket.

How about a nice pair of coffin cuff links?

"They're a little squeamish at first," said Anthony Kim, referring to his potential customers when they first see the tiny coffins that open to reveal a figure.

Kim's Durham, N.C.-based company, Precious Prints Inc., manufactures the "world's smallest casket" in 18-karat gold.

Using a mold, Kim also makes a loved one's fingerprint into necklaces and pendants.

"I did it for the living (survivors)," he said.

Leif Technologies Inc. believes Viewlogy, a visual eulogy electronically stored and then installed in a grave marker, will give some identity to dark headstones.

For $1,300 to $5,500, the company will customize a biography complete with pictures and information provided by the family. Protected by a bronze cover, the battery-operated unit is installed right into a grave marker or urn. The computer is activated by a magnet when the cover is opened.

A sample biography reads, "I was born on a farm outside of Bristol, Conn., during a blinding snowstorm ..."

"A lot of people like to go through cemeteries and they wonder about people's lives," said Deac Manross, president of the Lebanon, Ohio, company.

Rhys Williams, president of Claremont, Calif.-based Crystal Eternity, has found an alternative to urns with crystal balls that contain ashes.

Williams handcrafts a 3-inch solid sphere out of molten crystal and sprinkles ashes inside. The end result is a $300 glass ball with clear bubbles inside. Williams mounts them on a marble or silver base that includes an engraved plaque with the person's name.

David Arritt, funeral director of Arritt Funeral Home in Covington, Va., said he was looking for new equipment for his embalming room.

"This is a neat little item," Arritt said, sitting in a gurney that folds into a chair.