Big Bopper's 'Big' Casket a Macabre Marketable on eBay

by Mary Richard | January 2, 2009 at 11:44 pm

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Rock 'n' roll's most macabre historical artifact will go on the block when the family of the late 1950s pop star J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson auctions his casket on eBay sometime in the next few weeks - almost 50 years after "the day the music died."

The casket was exhumed last year from his original grave in Beaumont, Texas so it could be moved to a more visible location with a historic marker. On February 3, 1959, JP Richardson died at age 28 in a small plane crash that also killed Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens.

The Big Bopper died right as he was hitting the big time. The happy-go-lucky Texas deejay in a leopard-skin jacket would sell a million records but never see a dime from his greatest hit, "Chantilly Lace," a two-minute 1959 novelty song that is both innocent and suggestive.

In the past year, hundreds of visitors have seen the Big Bopper's casket at Kreason's museum, where it's displayed much as it appeared ina 1959 funeral home photo, along with a reproduction of a guitar-shaped wreath sent by Elvis Presley.