Stunned staff at a scrap metal merchants were left dead surprised after taking delivery of – a steel COFFIN.
The silk-lined casket, decorated in angel carvings, was handed into Taronis scrap dealers in Aston, Birmingham, last Friday afternoon.
Inside the coffin were official papers from a funeral parlour 4,000 miles away in Trinidad and Tobago.
Spookily, just 24 hours later another customer delivered a 1994 Ford Grosvenor HEARSE for scrap.
Despite being worth around £2,000 the 50kg coffin was only worth £10 as scrap metal.
Supervisor Stan Baldwin, 50, said: “I’ve worked here for 20 years and it’s the first time I’ve had a coffin handed in.
“We think someone went to the trouble, and expense, to have it brought over here, then realised they couldn’t use it.
“We just gave the guy £10 when he brought it in, but he probably spent that much just getting the thing here.
“It’s bigger than a normal coffin and it takes three of us to move it, and that’s without anyone in it.
“The combination of the hearse and coffin arriving so close together has spooked a lot of the lads out.
“We’ve stuck it on top of a van for now and are keeping an eye on it in case anything out of the ordinary starts happening.
“We auction stuff off if it’s left in the cars we get, and give the money to charity, so we’ll do the same with the coffin.”
The scrapyard are now auctioning the coffin with the proceeds going to Cancer Research.
