Were did they get John F. Kennedy's casket from?

Answer 1

A mahogany Marsellus that cost $3,160 in 1963. To this day presidents are still buried in the Marsellus brand casket now valued at close $20,000. CORRECTION:

Not quite that much. Retail in 2014 should be found between $9595 - $11,500 on the high end. There are two Marsellus models above the "President" and only the top end model, "The Marsellus Masterpiece", should be at or near the 20K price territory.

Some specifics can be added:

JFK's casket was a Marsellus 710. Although the "Seven-Ten" had a plain and unpretentious looking design of timeless simplicity, it was nevertheless an expensive luxury casket from solid 1-1/4" and 2-1/2" planks of up to 500 year-old African mahogany trees - a fact which did not yet evoke any noticeable environmental criticism at that time. The understatement-design had heavily rounded corners and all wooden swing bar handles with bronze tips and lugs. The Marsellus company had acquired the reputation of following extraordinarily high manufacturing standards in the production of its luxury caskets, involving a high percentage of hand-crafting by expert craftsmen. The company accepted e.g. only 20% of the wood as meeting the "select grade" standard for ribbon-grained mahogany. All casket parts were assembled with copper nails and brass screws. Marsellus also 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 finishing process took about three weeks and consisted of a dozen different operations which included the application of half a dozen layers of sealer and lacquer as well as half a day of hand-rubbing. President Kennedy's non-ornamental, yet highly elegant and stylish mahogany casket had a brownish wooden stain and a semi-gloss finish; inside, it featured a shirred champagne interior of non-crushable premium velvet and a moisture-absorbing bed of pure white spun rayon. Joseph Gawler's Sons Funeral Home of Washington, DC charged $ 2,460 for the casket, which had a wholesale price of about 500 at that time, respectively an estimated 800 including an solid bronze inner liner. The high price of Kennedy's casket as well as the less common "hinged-cap" design of its lid (of which only the uppermost part of the - divided - top was opened for viewing) seem to indicate that, probably, Kennedy's casket had been equipped with such a hermetically sealing inner bronze liner including a full-length oval glass top, raising the weight of the (empty) casket from 260 to about 500 lbs. Due to the fact that the Marsellus # 710 model was also chosen for the burial of President Ford and Pres. Nixon, and probably for Pres. Hoover as well, this design has become almost synonymous with "the presidential casket" in the US. Since the Marsellus factory closed down in 2003, the design is manufactured by Batesville under the designation Marsellus "President". It still looks the same, but is no longer offered in an almost unlimited number of custom designs, nor is an inner bronze liner available any more. In 2014, it had a Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price of about $13,000, but is offered by online retailers at prices starting from aboout $ 6,000 (a carved top, which the Kennedy casket did not have, would cost some $2,000 extra).

Answer 2

With respect to your question concerning the issue of an open casket funeral (or lack thereof)for President Kennedy:

In his excellent book, "The Death of a President" (one of the few books concerning President Kennedy written with the full cooperation of the Kennedy family), author William Manchester clarifies the issue of the open casket/closed casket issue and the decisions behind it:

According to the book, neither Mrs. Kennedy nor Robert Kennedy were enthusiastic about an open casket funeral, but were cognizant of the fact that state funeral protocol often favored an open casket viewing so they went ahead and viewed the body in The White House to decide the issue once and for all.

When the coffin was opened, they saw that the President's remains were certainly presentable for public viewing (his injuries in Dallas had not marred or disfigured his face in any way) but, as is often the case with remains prepared for open casket viewing, extensive cosmetics were used on the Presidents' face by the funeral directors which resulted in a made-up, somewhat artificial, unnatural appearance.

It was decided by Mrs. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy after viewing the body that this heavy use of make-up was uncharacteristic of President Kennedy and that they would prefer that the public remember him in as he was in life, so they decreed that the coffin would remained closed during the funeral (a decision that many grieving families make and certainly not without precedent as far as a President is concerned; indeed, President Franklin Roosevelt also had a closed casket state funeral).

Answer 3

The casket used to carry President Kennedy's body from Dallas to Washington is in a watery grave -- 9,000 feet [about 2700 meters] down in the Atlantic Ocean. In early 1965 the casket was dropped from a military plane into an area where unstable and outdated weapons and ammunition are dumped. The casket was drilled full of holes, weighted with cement and crated before being dropped by an Air Force C-130 aircraft past the contentinal shelf. The C-130 circled the drop watching the casket immediately sink in over 9,000 of water. Robert Kennedy approved the decision to dispose of the casket in this manner.

Answer 4

the o neal funeral home in dallas, while kennedy's body lay in trauma room one parklands memorial hospital 1963

O'Neal had obtained the casket (a solid bronze double lid "Handley" design with an amber colored "Britannia" brushed finished) from the Elgin Metal Casket Company of Elgin, IL. While loading and unloading the bronze casket, the secret service people damaged some of the swing bar handles, which made it necessary to replaced the casket. For JFK's burial, the damaged bronze casket was replaced therefore by a new casket made of mahogany - a Marsellus # 710 - manufactured by the (former) Marsellus Casket Company of Syracuse, NY. The new casket was provided by Joseph Gawler's Sons Funeral Chapel of Washington, DC.

Answer 5

They supposedly buried his body in the Arlington National Cemetery. Some conspiracy theorists believe his body was mutilated and hidden to "prove" the single gunman theory.