As you might expect, there aren’t a lot of novelty gifts out there for funeral directors. You can find just about any type of occupational-themed item for medical professionals, teachers, lawyers, etc. However, funeral directors must look far and wide to find their work represented in this way. In 2013, ASD stumbled upon an eBay page for a gentleman that had created a Cemetery Lego Set. We shared the image on our social media and were completely astonished by the huge number of funeral professionals that expressed interest in owning the set. We found the seller on eBay’s contact information to find out if he could make a cemetery set for us according to our custom specifications. Thus began our wonderful relationship with “Dan the Lego Man” (as we jokingly refer to him internally).
Dan worked with us to create a brand-designed cemetery set that included a green base plate, white wrap-around fence and a headstone that featured ASD’s logo. A year or so later, we worked with Dan to customize a Funeral Service Lego Set which featured a casket, guest book, organ, tribute video, memorial blanket with easel, and so many other amazing little details like a tissue box and a “Last Will and Testament” piece.
Then, in 2016, Dan created a Hearse Lego Set that included a casket and two funeral director mini figs (not to mention a cool ASD logo license plate!) Last year, Dan truly outdid himself with an incredible Embalming Room Lego Set. The set is the most detailed one yet and has created the biggest reactions from funeral professionals on social media.
Just about every week, a funeral director will contact us and ask if they can purchase a funeral-themed Lego Sets. However, the sets are not available through Lego. Dan creates them by finding and ordering different pieces from many different Lego websites. He customizes all of the sets with decal stickers as well, making our sets truly unique and special. The downside to this is that because Dan is just one person, we can only get a limited number, so while we can’t sell our sets, we give away every set we can through convention raffles and contests on social media.
Since 2013, we’ve given away about 200 of our sets to morticians across the country. It’s been amazing to see how much joy it has brought to funeral directors who are thrilled to finally see a novelty item devoted to their profession.
