Knight Ridder Newspapers

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Just a few days after Pope John Paul II’s funeral last week, Bev McGill received a call from a woman in Parkville, Mo.

The woman was prearranging her funeral and had to know: Where can I get a casket like the pope’s?

The pope’s burial choice might lead people to the discovery that casket choices today are not limited to those on the mortuary showroom floor.

A cardboard container? A build-your-own box? A $925 “Mother Casket” from Costco? A casket shaped like a sports car or a giant cigarette?

Not wanting to “bury money,” the woman caller had long ago decided that when her time came, she wanted nothing more than a plain pine box. The pope’s coffin of cypress with dovetail corners, striking in its simplicity, charmed her.

McGill, a board member of the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Greater Kansas City, steered the woman toward a man in northwest Missouri and a group of monks in Iowa who make wooden caskets.

“The only thing a casket has to do is to look nice to you, in terms of your personal taste, and to hold the body until it gets to the grave,” said Joshua Slocum, executive director of the Funeral Consumers Alliance, an industry watchdog in Burlington, Vt.

A casket isn’t something people feel comfortable shopping for, so they might be surprised at the options available on the Internet. Take cardboard, for instance. Eco-friendly, yes, and certainly cheap. But it’s not your typical casket material.

A New Zealand company called Living Legacies sells a cardboard casket for $130, plus freight.

It has an untreated pine base board, which makes it strong enough to hold a body. The best part: Loved ones can decorate it or write farewell messages on it.

In Kansas City, casket preferences hold fast to traditional lines. “The majority of people still go with the metal caskets,” said Ron Marts, owner of Marts Memorial Services.

He sells caskets for pauper and prince, starting with his least expensive metal casket for $395 and a laminated pine model for $670.

Or you can have a Cadillac of a casket, though he’s never sold one. The $25,000, gold-plated bronze “Promethean” gleams like a big, beautiful bar of Fort Knox gold and is so heavy that it takes eight pallbearers to carry.

The average cost of a casket today is $2,000, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Chances are you won’t see most basic caskets available at funeral homes, although most casket makers offer a version of the “pine box.”

Few people ask to see anything other than what they’re shown. Industry studies suggest that the average casket shopper buys one of the first three models they are shown at the funeral home.

Although the casket is often the most expensive part of a funeral, people just don’t get excited about buying them, said Andrew Loos, owner of Missouri Funeral Care in Raytown, Mo.

“There’s not a drive to seek out information to want to buy them,” he said. “When we meet with a family, they go down and pick a casket by color and by price. They consider it a very small part of the big scheme of things.”

That’s not say that nontraditional can’t be dressed up to look more expensive.

Loos offers a casket made of chipboard covered with gray flannel cloth, a casket he’s been known to give free to families burying indigent veterans.

Covered with an American flag, “it could be solid-wood mahogany under there,” he said. “It’s just an inexpensive way for us to help those folks who don’t have any money.”

But anyone can buy it, for $450. For the same amount, you can go completely retro with pine.

Glenn Crowther began making wooden caskets more than two years ago. His first were of hardwood – walnut, ash, cherry and red oak.

“But we had several people who wanted the simple pine box,” he said of the version that he sells for $450 to $500. “I would say that’s been our No. 1 seller.”

His company, Simply Wood, has sold quite a few, in fact, to people who are using them as blanket closets or bookcases until the day they need them.

Crowther hopes the pope’s funeral, viewed by millions, will spark coffin talk.

“I thought that may work towards just helping people think about it, because I know some of our customers have said they thought they were required by law to purchase a casket from the funeral home,” he said.

Slocum, with the Funeral Consumers Alliance, said misinformation abounds about this end-of-life purchase.

For example, you can rent a casket with a removable liner if you want to display the body in one casket and then bury or cremate it in another. At $500 to $1,000, the cost of renting is just as much as buying.

“I have to say, in order to be completely honest, that there is no such thing as the definition of taste and dignity,” Slocum said. “Everyone has a different idea of what constitutes a dignified casket or funeral. For some people, only an elaborate display is in keeping with their sense of propriety, for others only a modest display.”

Whatever you want, you should let your loved ones know today, he said. You may want that cardboard casket, but are your loved ones going to be embarrassed to display you in anything less than copper or bronze?

“Most families face a death having no idea what to do,” he says. “They often don’t know what the deceased wanted. My advice to people: Don’t assume.”

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The Funeral Rule

The Funeral Rule, enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, requires funeral directors to give you itemized prices in person and, if you ask, by phone.

The rule also requires that:

• A funeral provider cannot refuse you or charge you a fee to handle a casket you bought somewhere else.

• If you ask about funeral arrangements in person, the funeral home must give you a written price list to keep, showing you the goods and services the home offers.

• If you want to buy a casket or an outer burial container, the provider must show you descriptions and prices before actually showing the caskets.

• A provider must allow you to buy individual goods and services, outside of any “package” they might offer.

For more information, visit www.ftc.gov/bcp/online/pubs/services/funeral

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Casket-buying tips

• Only a few states, including Oklahoma, prohibit anyone other than a mortician from selling a casket or coffin.

• The Funeral Consumers Alliance recommends that you not prepay for a casket unless you are taking it home, because casket stores and vendors can go out of business, leaving customers in the lurch.

The alliance does not recommend any particular vendor, but does provide a list from which to start shopping. It is available at www.funerals.org.

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Coffin or casket?

• A coffin is the mostly European term for the box that holds the body, often with six sides. The lid on a coffin is completely removable.

• A casket is the term North Americans use for the same thing. Caskets are more often rectangular and have hinged lid