Zinkers

Johan Johnson born in Sweden 1834, died Cleveland 1908
embellished with Swedish crown

this one is either missing a panel, or was created to serve double duty for plantings

The Monumental Bronze Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut cast these grave markers for a generation (1874-1914), with secondary assembly shops. They were zinc, which they advertised as 'white bronze'. Bronze is mostly copper, with tin usually. Brass is copper, and zinc. There is no 'white bronze', it is advertising hokum. Zinc is zinc. They were sold through catalogues and salesmen. Some cemeteries did not allow them. They were cheaper than stone. They were hollow and of several sections, some fused with molten zinc, some bolted. During WWI the factory was refitted for munitions. Panels continued to be made well into the Depression, when the company folded in 1939.

The color became a blue gray after a chemical coating was applied. The markings are as legible as the day they were made. A drawback is that zinc is brittle, and may deteriorate when punctured. A large monument could flow after many years to look as if sagged, or crept. These modest ones do not have that problem.

Here you can see four rosette fasteners in the corners of the central panel

These are in Monroe Street Cemetery, Cleveland. Rain splashed dirt up on the marker.

Here is one for man and wife, with panels front and back. He died in 1901, she in 1906. Again, the rosette bolts are decoratively visible. This could be a plot point in a mystery, or spy novel; one can open up the panel and hide or store an object within.