You Never Know What You Will Find Surfing the Internet

I don't remember what I was doing when I came across this splendid website on the Internet. Now I know that there are at least two custom hat makers in Montana, both of them located in Billings; and at least two custom coffin/casket makers in Montana, one of them just south of Red Lodge and the other in Kalispell.
The latter is called Sweet Earth Casket Company and the former is called Cowboy Coffin and Pine Box Company. I have written about the Cowboy Coffin outfit before, here and here. Rand Herzberg is still going strong.

The folks at Sweet Earth Casket Company do similar things, though they do offer some ideas on DIY funerals, calculated to stir up our undertaker friends no doubt, and they offer ideas on what to use your casket for in advance of its eventual and final need. The idea that caught my attention was using your casket/coffin as a bookshelf 'til needed. Check them out. They also put on a 4 day casketmaker school.

While I'm thinking about it, have you ever wondered what is the difference between a casket and a coffin? I always thought they were pretty much the same, but when you look them up it turns out that you have a lot of choices: One source says"coffin" is the British term and "casket" is the American term for the same thing, i.e. a container to bury the dead in. But then others say that a casket is a fancy coffin. And this site makes a distinction on shape, that is, the coffin has the traditional wide shoulders shape and the casket is oblong. There are some pictures on the last site mentioned. Come to think on it, the British did usually go for the traditional wide shoulder shape.