(Editor’s note: DeeDee Wood is the owner of Black Cat Curiosities, an online antiques research and sales venue.)
few days ago, on an overcast, gloomy morning, I made a trip to a local cemetery on the Eastern Shore of Maryland to contemplate cemetery antiques.
You heard it right — cemeteries, funeral objects, and even stranger things in this genre are the final destination of our Antiques Road Trip Series this month, for spooky October — your local cemetery and the antiques involved in such endeavors.
There are many cemeteries, graveyards and places of rest scattered throughout our area, and all are involved in the creation of items prior to, and after burial, that in one way or another can be considered antiques. Some are quite old, and have a rich history to tell of the people and places of our area and heritage. 
Some examples of “cemetery antiques” or funeral-related antiques that can be purchased for the more eclectic collector would start with the basics.
If you have ever wandered a local cemetery, as I did a few days back, you might see intricate iron fencing surrounding graves, or ornately carved limestone gravestones, weathered with time. Of course, any item in a cemetery is strictly not for sale, not for consideration for taking, and it is illegal to disturb such situations. Sometimes, however, when graveyards are moved, or if the family wants to revamp a particular plot they own, they will sell old iron fencing, tombstones themselves, carved embellishments of the plot and more. It is rare, but you can run across such items from time to time, in a legal trading situation from a reputable dealer.
Other examples of antiques related to graveyards are of the more unusual variety. On occasion, coffin constructors would make a coffin and it would not be sold, so it would be stored, or forgotten, only to be found many years later and sold to an antique dealer.
Collectors of the more unusual variety items can find antique coffins for adults and child sizes. Sometimes, especially in Victorian times, coffins would be lined with lead and have a special compartment to store ice for preservation purposes.
Some people purchase antique hearses, which, of course, are vehicles designed to carry a coffin to a funeral or burial site in a graveyard. Some older models can be expensive. Hearses are iconic and revered, making a profound statement with their mere passing by on the road.
There are hearses that were designed to be a coach, carried along by a horse team, and the motorized type, that is a bit more modern, with many styles, setups and companies that made this funeral vehicle that is collected and restored today.
As I was traveling by foot around some of our Eastern Shore cemeteries, I began to think about some of the intricate carvings I saw on tombstones as I passed some of the more interesting ones. A willow tree symbolizing rebirth, two hands shaking, symbolizing life and death shaking hands, or a multitude of flowers with many meanings, such as primroses and eternal love. Some people would take substances, such as highball wax, and rub the tombstone carvings onto paper, to make a copy of these reliefs, cut them, and frame them. European versions of this, especially in England, were called brass rubbings, which are still a popular antique to collect, and are named as such because often the reliefs in the UK were made of brass on tombs, and “rubbed” to get the relief image.
This process in this region of the world hit its height of popularity in the 1960s and early ’70s. (Today, it is frowned upon to do this technique in graveyards and cemeteries due to delicate conditions of stones and rules of the cemeteries. Never attempt such an endeavor without strict permission of the owners of the land in which you traverse and always respect places of rest.)
I sat beside a large tombstone to have a drink of water, and began to think of other “antiques” that could relate to my local cemetery visit.
Funeral homes had many marketing materials to procure business, some of them being now antiques. Funeral fans, which displayed the funeral services were passed out during a funeral for participants to fan themselves. Yard sticks with funeral home names can still be found and purchased, along with key chains, wall calendars and matchbooks. In that same vein, you can purchase antique death certificates, (some of famous people like Marilyn Monroe or James Dean, even Lizzie Borden’s death certificate copy can be found online for the morbidly curious buyer, as well as common antique copies of “normal” people if you so choose to desire such an object.)
Old antique books are available, as well, for all of these graveyard or funeral genres, such as books describing symbolism on tombstones, historic areas and burials, and funeral practices. There are funeral home pamphlets, funeral programs and more still available for purchase, especially from churches or funeral homes and funeral directors, many of these items having some sort of local marketing contained within.
Last, but not least, there are a variety of items found in antique marketplaces related to the cemeteries I wandered on my road trip that morning. Casket name plates, antique mortuary supplies, funeral home lanterns and other goods (sold when old funeral homes close down,) prayer cards and stands, antique brass grave flower holders, funeral mourning clothing and more can be found out in the oddities marketplace, which is vast and interesting, to say the least.
Get out on foot this spooky fall season and wander about in any of a number of local cemeteries where you are permitted to enter.
Read the tombstones, consider the past in this area of the Eastern Shore, and think about those that came before you.
Antique stores or online venues provide any of a number of items for sale relating to this genre, and I, too, considered these items and objects that I could seek in the marketplace as the wind rustled my hair, and the sky grew dimmer, as I made my way back to the safety and comfort of my own hearse and departed.
