Mortuaries already perform a host of services to handle, clean and present the body of a deceased for funeral services and burial. It would be a simple addition to the portfolio of services offered to the family and friends of the deceased...
...relics, sealed in genuine holy water, presented in small glass or alloy vials, in a range of styles. Wear them around your neck, on a brooch, or lodged in a tasteful car-dashboard statuette of Our Lady.
"If your mother was a saint, shouldn't she be remembered like one?"-- danrue, Nov 28 2000 Baked. http://www.ananova....tory/sm_636099.htmlexcept for the bit about holy water... [Loris, Aug 19 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004] Let me give you a hand... http://en.wikipedia.../wiki/Hand_of_Vecna [normzone, Mar 22 2012] I'm so jealous over not thinking of this first my head hurts. Funeral homes can expand their little casket-and-urns shops to include huge numbers of reliquaries, the government can charge a fee for certifying them as hygienic, popular figures can ask that they be divided into relics and auctioned off for charity, living rooms can have genuinely interesting conversation pieces for the first time ('Oh, whose spleen is that? It's lovely') and so on.-- Monkfish, Nov 28 2000 Of course, an entire _spleen_ might be a bit much. In traditional relics, a bit of nail or skin or hair is sufficient... although the more exotic "bits" would probably fetch a tidy sum!-- danrue, Nov 28 2000 No, the more the better. The power of a relic was a function of the proportion of the carcass it represented -- though certain bits were, of course, holier than others (it is rare to come across things like 'the upper left buttock of St. Methodius', 'the perineum of St. Catherine of Siena' and the like). Entire corpses remain both common and popular as super-relics, though they are more rarely (but not never) preserved and displayed. Heads are good, little scraps less significant. Drops of blood and the like are more common because they're so much easier to collect and display in nice little cases.
It would be a very interesting problem to divide the remains of a celebrity, say, in a way that would maximize their value. I see graduate programs in Finance & Undertaking.-- Monkfish, Nov 28 2000, last modified Nov 29 2000 Sounds like a cool idea to me. You'd have to post armed guards on all the cemeteries though, to stop people digging up corpses and creating fake relics.
Auctioneer: "Sold! For $10m, Barbara Streisand's Nose. And now lot number 38, another Barbara Streisand's nose." (price and object chosen are for illustrative purposes only).-- DrBob, Nov 30 2000 Why not go the whole hog and wear the complete body round your neck. Interesting topic of conversation when standing in a queue.-- fretzman, Nov 30 2000 Thank you, Fretzman. That's a wonderfully surreal image.-- danrue, Dec 06 2000, last modified Dec 11 2000 Can you just imagine the eBay potential????-- sadhousewife, Dec 06 2000 This is a very cool idea..full of poetry. The holy water thing is a bit limiting in that it is too catholic, but if the next mortician I meet is selling, I'm buying.-- Dolophine, Dec 12 2000 For some reason this idea reminds me of both Stranger in a Strange Land (er, except without the eating part) and Star Trek (where Ferrengi are dessicated, sliced and auctioned off after death).-- amadeus, Feb 15 2001 Dolophine - what are you on about? The WHOLE IDEA is too Catholic.-- macm, Feb 15 2001 I was discussing something along these lines in the pub last night. We weren't thinking of mortuaries though, but hospitals. What triggered us off was the massive price you could get on e-bay for George Best's liver, especially if it was set in glass with George's signature on there somewhere.-- DrBob, Aug 19 2002 Do you mean his current liver, or his original one?-- angel, Aug 19 2002 Well we started off by wondering what had happened to the original one but then, of course, we moved on to the idea of having regular transplants and selling on the old liver each time. If you extend the whole idea onto other, less vital, organs (a kidney say), then you could get added value for your organs by having them transplanted into a celebrity and then removed after a short while and auctioned off.-- DrBob, Aug 19 2002 This is sort-of Baked in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, where when a famous Ferengi dies, he's cremated and then small containers of his ashes are auctioned to the highest bidder.
The whole "celebrity transplant idea" is so bizarre that there's got to be money in it .... it does smack a little of the Blackadder "Holy Relics" scene though .... go for it ... if they will buy John Lennon's piano and Napoleon's hat, they're sure to want organs. Would you just keep te organs in a jar somewhere, or actually have them transplanted into you ??-- 8th of 7, Aug 19 2002 I can't believe that for almost two years, no one has answered 8th with "the face that she keeps in a jar by the door".-- gardnertoo, Jul 29 2004 Percy - "Behold! I have here the finger of our Lord. Baldrick, you look surprised.." Baldrick-"I am. I thought they only came in packs of ten!"-- simonj, Jul 29 2004 I was thinking of a relic idea and decided it might be better as an anno here. The idea: arrange to be converted completely to relics on your demise, with these relics sold to support your estate or causes you favor. History suggests relics made from saints would be most in demand, and sales could support whatever endeavor got the saint sainted - for example, I am sure Mother Teresa relics would fetch a high price, and their sales could support her hospital. Other relics might be from rock stars or politicians or sports heroes. I am sure there would be interest among a certain set in relics produced from executed criminals, again with the proceeds devoted to alleviating the evil these folks did in life.-- bungston, Mar 22 2012 I always wanted to own the hand of Vecna (link).-- normzone, Mar 22 2012 bone china... maybe a set of piano keys' ivory; the rest cast into a too-heavy-to-move brass lawn ornament or gargoyle, except my butt: that you can cast into a relic suitable for veneration.-- FlyingToaster, Mar 23 2012 The local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism has a cast of the buttocks of a (living) member. It is indeed treated as a relic, and displayed and venerated on (in)appropriate occasions.-- spidermother, Mar 23 2012 That may not be anachronistic, but it is certainly creative.-- mouseposture, Mar 23 2012 Been a while since I've seen a D&D reference here. Takes me back... I may have to put in a call to my Gamers Anonymous sponsor.-- Alterother, Mar 23 2012 random, halfbakery