A custom tombstone is a memorial dedicated to someone’s late loved one, cherishing their memories and honoring the deceased’s legacy. What makes a tombstone custom is exactly that, customizing the tombstone in a way that fits and serves the memory of the deceased.
A tombstone will be placed onto the plot the family selected and purchased usually from the cemetery. For every plot usually equals one deceased. (One plot = one person buried) There are exceptions to this rule if someone will be cremated.
Types of Tombstones
Tombstones range in many different shapes and sizes. A tombstone can be customized to fit one or more deceased depending on the amount of plots the family owns.
Single Tombstone
A single tombstone or single headstone is one where a single person is buried and added into the stone. A single tombstone is equal to one burial plot.
Double Tombstone
A double tombstone or double headstone is one where two people are buried side by side. A double tombstone is equal to two burial plots.
Triple Tombstone
A triple tombstone or triple headstone is where three people are buried side by side by side. A triple tombstone is equal to three burial plots.
Flat Tombstone
A flat tombstone also known as a flat marker or flat headstone is typically one to four deceased but can situationally include more family members.
Slanted Face Tombstone
A slanted face tombstone also known as a slant marker is a tombstone that can fit various amounts of deceased. The slanted face comes from the shape of the “face” of the stone being slanted.
Dog and pet tombstones
A dog tombstone or headstone is one that is used to commemorate the passing of a loved pet. They can follow any shape or size of the normal pieces or it can be transformed into a miniature model of the regular sized pieces.
Other Types of Tombstones
There are multiple other types of tombstones, they can come in any shape or form as the material a tombstone is created with can be molded into anything the customer desires.
What is the material of a tombstone plaque
A tombstone can come in various material types ranging from marble to granite to even an assortment of metals like bronze. Today over 95% of tombstones selected by families are granite, and there’s a good reason why. You see, marble used to be the prime material the “king” of the cemetery until years after the first tombstones were installed.
Price and Durability
The two things that differentiate granite and marble are price and durability. In today’s world pricing is everything and nobody likes receiving something that they know in the “near” future that their hard earned money is going to waste. Now we’re not talking about a few months or a few years but over the period of multiple decades marble seems to get worn down a lot faster than granite.
Marble being the more porous stone allows more water to absorb into its body and especially in colder states like New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut, the winters do a toll. Same as the public roads we drive on daily, as water seeps into the rock, during the freezing temperatures the stone has a higher chance of cracking and potentially breaking off into separate pieces.
Now as granite has a different and tighter structure, less water seeps through during a rainstorm leaving less of a change of erosion and splitting during winter months. You can still order granite for any type of headstone or tombstone in marble, but we advise that down the road twenty to fifty years, the shape of the original design may not resemble any longer.
Bronze Plaque
On a tombstone or headstone you will see various bronze plaques and emblems throughout cemeteries in the US. Reason being, it gives it a elegant but non flashy look. Bronze is used for an assortment of family crest emblems to military symbols. Bronze can even be drilled onto the stone in the form of a single panel covering the whole stone with drilled in bronze plates of the deceased names and dates.
We will always recommend bronze as our flagship medal as it is easy to mold and mend to the desired shape and look. The only thing we tell families is that bronze is an expensive medal so just be weary that it has a significant cost attached to it.
Polished vs Unpolished
Tombstones and headstones can come in polished or unpolished forms or even a mix between the two. Typically tombstones have at least a few areas of polish as it is easier to clean the stone overtime.