What is the difference between Marsellus Masterpiece and a Marsellus 710 state funeral casket?

Answer 1

The Marsellus "Masterpiece" was the top of the line model of the former Marsellus hardwood casket company of Syracuse, NY, while the Marsellus 710 - informally called the "Kennedy casket", "America's presidential casket" or "the state casket" - was the third most expensive casket design of the company. Since the closing of the famous Marsellus factory in 2003, both designs have been produced by the Batesville casket company.

With regard to its design, the "Masterpiece" is a rather bulky and somewhat awkwardly baroque looking casket, which tries to show every single dollar it costs. The empty weight of the casket, which is made of solid 2" and 3" planks of select grade ribbon grained African mahogany is around 450 lbs. The amount of mahogany (coming from trees which are some 500 years old) used in one "Masterpiece" has an equivalent of approximately 14,000 feet of veneer - a fact which increasingly met the criticism of environmentalists who pointed to the destruction of the tropical rain forest. The production time of a "Masterpiece" casket takes almost 8 month. Just the assembly of the component parts with copper nails and brass screws takes one experienced craftsman an entire 40 hour work week and the finishing operation lasts up to 30 days while five layers of sealer and lacquer are applied. The hand rubbing of a high gloss finished "Masterpiece" takes more than seven hours. An original "Masterpiece" - one of the last ones manufactured at the Marsellus plant in Syracuse - was chosen for the burial of President Reagan. Currently (in 2014), the Batesville (Marsellus) "Masterpiece" has a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $ 38,000, but it is offered by Online casket retailers at prices starting from 16,000 (plus some 2,000 for an optional carved top). The original Marsellus "Masterpiece" was available with a 250 lbs heavy hermetically sealed heavy inner bronze liner with a full length oval glass top; the liner raised the price of the casket by another 25%.

Unlike the "Masterpiece", the model # 710 has a plain and unpretentious looking design of timeless simplicity, representing the understatement style of the Eastern elite. Nevertheless it is an expensive luxury casket made from solid 1-1/4" and 2-1/2" planks of African mahogany, which results in an empty weight around 260 lbs. The casket has heavily rounded corners and all wooden swing bar handles with bronze tips and lugs. Marsellus claimed that the amount of mahogany used in each 710 model was about 140 board feet - an equivalent of almost 3.700 square feet of veneer, enough for some 200 dining tables. The successor to the original Marsellus 710, which is manufactured by the Batesville company nowadays under the new name (Marsellus) "President" has a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $ 13,000 (without a carved lid), but is offered by Online retailers already at prices starting from "just" 6,000. The original Marsellus "Seven Ten" was chosen for the burial of several American presidents (Kennedy, Ford, Nixon, and probably also for Hoover). Because of that, it has become something like the unofficial "presidential casket" in the US.