Funeral Antique Collecting: Uncover The Intriguing History and Value

Funeral antiques are artifacts related to mourning, memorialization, and death practices from past eras.

Collecting these unusual historical objects provides a window into how societies dealt with grief and remembrance.

From postmortem photography to woven hair jewelry, funeral antiques reveal the evolution of mourning rituals and capture the artistic expressions of loss created across cultures and time periods.

For history and artifact enthusiasts, building a collection of funeral antiques offers an opportunity to preserve fading cultural traditions and study changing attitudes towards mortality.

However, these sensitive items require considerate and ethical collecting practices. As interest grows in this evocative area of antiques, collectors must educate themselves on respectful stewardship of funeral artifacts.

Understanding Funeral Antiques and Their Significance

Funeral antiques encompass objects made or used to memorialize the dead. They include:

• Mourning jewelry containing hair or photographic remembrances
• Postmortem and memorial photography
• Woven hair wreaths and other hairwork pieces
• Cemetery art like gravestone rubbings
• Funeral invitations and memorial cards
• Coffin plates and fittings
• Funeral and mourning attire

These artifacts provide insight into how past generations grieved, commemorated the dead, and contemplated their own mortality. Their history gives context on the changing social customs around death and bereavement.

The Historical Context of Mourning and Memorial Practices

Attitudes towards death and mourning have fluctuated over time.

In the Victorian era, intricate rituals around grief and remembrance reached their peak. This era’s complex social rules around bereavement generated a distinct material culture, including elaborate hair jewelry and early postmortem photography.

By the early 20th century, public mourning customs gradually faded.

However, funeral antiques capture this pivotal cultural shift in how death was memorialized. Collecting and preserving these artifacts allows their history and craftsmanship to impact new generations.

Categories of Funeral Antiques to Explore

 Mourning Jewelry: From Lockets to Hair Wreaths

• Mourning jewelry represents one of the most common types of funeral antiques.

During the Victorian era, jewelry containing the hair of deceased loved ones or photographic remembrances gained immense popularity.

• Hairwork jewelry incorporates human hair into brooches, bracelets, rings, and watch fobs. Women often incorporated hair mementos from relatives into elaborate wreaths and floral designs. Other hairwork pieces contain symbolic designs, like anchors and crosses, made from a deceased family member’s hair.

Later mourning jewelry incorporated early postmortem photographs into lockets and pins. These pieces allowed surviving relatives to carry photographic keepsakes of departed loved ones. Specialty jewelers also offered custom-engraved jewelry memorializing those who had died.

Postmortem Photography and Memorial Cards

Postmortem photography, also known as memorial portraiture, emerged in the 19th century as a way to commemorate the dead.

Photographers would pose deceased individuals as if alive and at rest, sometimes alongside grieving family members.

As photography became more accessible, portrait studios offered inexpensive memorial cards featuring the dead. Far less costly than formal postmortem photography, these small cards allowed even modest families to own a photographic memento of lost relatives.

These early photographic practices may seem morbid by modern standards. However, they offered comfort to grieving families and allowed them to idealize images of deceased loved ones.

Coffin Plates, Funeral Tokens, and Other Remembrances

Funeral antiques also include smaller commemorative artifacts like coffin plates, funeral tokens, and ceramic grave offerings. Victorian coffin plates feature engraved designs and the deceased’s name and death date.

Cast iron funeral tokens were often distributed to funeral guests as a remembrance.

And porcelain or stoneware grave offerings, placed on gravesites to commemorate the dead, may feature symbolic motifs like angels or lambs.

These smaller historical artifacts reveal the evolution of funeral commemoration and the value Victorians placed on visible grieving rituals. Their designs and inscriptions preserve the names and death dates of long-departed family members.

The Intricacies of Valuating Funeral Antiques

Assessing Age and Authenticity

When appraising funeral antiques, verified age and material authenticity dramatically impact value.

For example, hairwork jewelry often incorporated both human hair from the deceased and fine materials like gold or gemstones.

Evaluators inspect hairwork pieces for signs of synthetic hair which lower value. They also assess metal purity marks and gemstone quality to verify precious materials. Understanding when certain jewelry styles or photographic methods fell in and out of favor also assists with age verification.

Condition and Rarity: Key Factors in Determining Value

As with most antiques, excellent condition greatly elevates the value of funeral artifacts.

Damage like broken photo frames, missing coffin plate fragments, or hairwork with loose threads and knots negatively impacts price.

Rarity also plays a key role. While mourning jewelry is relatively common, other pieces like early postmortem photography command high prices due to their scarcity.

Unique funeral artifacts also fetch greater sums from serious collectors.

Evaluating and protecting the condition of funeral antiques requires specialized knowledge. Understanding which pieces are rare or unusual is also key to determining true market value.

Where to Find Funeral Antiques

As far as online options are concerned there are a couple of places worth noting:

ETSY: Etsy is known for it’s arts and crafts but it has a plethora of collectibles and they do have a range of funeral antiques and funeral-related items. Check out the link below to see what they have today.

EBAY: There’s not much eBay doesn’t have and funeral antiques are no exception. Click the link below and it will take you to their range of funeral antiques. I recommend checking eBay regularly as there are more items being added often.

Preserving and Restoring Your Collection

Best Practices for the Care of Funeral Antiques

Preventing deterioration of fragile funeral artifacts requires careful handling and display. Hairwork pieces are especially vulnerable to damage without proper care.

Prolonged light exposure can fade daguerreotype postmortem photographs.

Ideally, glass-covered shadowboxes and museum-grade archival materials should frame fragile items. Climate and humidity control, specialized lighting, and dust mitigation also help preserve funeral antiques.

Before actively collecting, educate yourself on identifying vulnerable pieces and protecting them from inadvertent damage during cleaning or handling.

Take care not to break delicate beads, threads, or photographic emulsions.

Navigating the Challenges of Restoration

However, even knowledgeable collectors may acquire funeral antiques needing restoration. Typical issues include broken jewelry fastenings, hairwork with loosened threads, or photographic flaking.

Seeking professional assistance ensures proper restoration methods. Well-meaning attempts to fix delicate materials often creates additional damage. Hairwork, in particular, requires specialized techniques best practiced by restoration experts familiar with the medium.

While quality restoration work can get costly, it protects the longevity and value of rare funeral artifacts. Having pieces appraised before and after restoration also helps collectors recoup the expense when reselling.

Ethical Considerations and Cultural Sensitivity

Respecting the Deceased and Their Families

Given their sensitive nature, collecting funeral antiques raises ethical issues to consider. These artifacts represent people who once lived and their grieving loved ones.

Collectors should refrain from acquiring artifacts without full background information or those removed illegally from gravesites. Trafficking in stolen funeral pieces disrespects both cultural traditions around death and families of the deceased.

Exhibiting or selling funeral antiques also requires thoughtfulness about the person memorialized. Collectors should honor their memory through considerate handling and preservation of their images or craftwork.

Collecting with Historical Awareness and Empathy

Seeking profit from funeral artifacts also risks commercializing deeply personal grief. However, thoughtful collectors focused on historical value and preservation provide these cultural touchstones with dignity.

Understanding the context around early postmortem photography and mourning hairwork also cultivates empathy about past generations’ grief experiences. This knowledge inspires collectors to approach their artifacts as more than novel oddities or marketable investments.

While the antique market continues evolving, funeral artifacts warrant particular sensitivity. Collectors who prioritize preservation, historical education, and research help these unique grief artifacts retain their emotive impact and cultural resonance.

Conclusion

In the fascinating world of funeral antiques collecting, enthusiasts embark on a unique journey through time, exploring the rich tapestry of human emotions surrounding grief and remembrance.

These artifacts, from mourning jewelry to postmortem photography, offer a poignant glimpse into the diverse ways societies have coped with loss throughout history.

As you consider venturing into this distinctive realm of collecting, embrace the opportunity to preserve fading cultural traditions and study evolving attitudes towards mortality.

The intricate details of mourning practices, reflected in the craftsmanship of funeral antiques, carry stories that transcend generations.

While the sensitive nature of these items demands careful and ethical collecting practices, the rewards are enormous.

Building a collection of funeral antiques not only grants you a tangible connection to the past but also allows you to contribute to the preservation of our shared human history.

In the spirit of embracing the unusual and different, consider adding funeral antiques to your collection. Each piece tells a story of love, loss, and the enduring human spirit.

As you delve into this unique collecting niche, approach it with curiosity, empathy, and historical awareness. The world of funeral antiques beckons you to explore the extraordinary and discover the beauty in the unconventional.

So, dare to be different in your collecting pursuits and uncover the hidden treasures that await, inviting you to connect with the past in a truly extraordinary way.