Anchor Urns

For those who spent years in the Navy or the Coast Guard, the anchor was a part of the uniform long before it became a design. Those years often stay with a person as a set of lifelong habits, such as being up early without the need for an alarm or ensuring everything is stowed exactly where it belongs. You may remember them as the person who was always reachable, the one the family organized itself around because they were consistently where they said they would be.

There is a specific way families use the word anchor when describing someone they love. It is a term that often enters ordinary conversation long before it takes on a more somber meaning. It is rarely intended as a compliment about strength or heroism. Instead, it is about being findable. It describes the person who answered the phone and stayed steady, someone who never had to be chased.

For many, the water was the other half of their identity. Whatever burdens they carried for everyone else seemed to go quiet once they were out on it. The family learned to respect that silence, developing a habit of leaving them to it, knowing that the water provided a space where they could simply be.

This collection is crafted from cast aluminum, featuring the anchor design engraved into the surface. Each piece is available in a range of painted finishes or in a hand-applied enamel with hand-detailed silver bands. Every urn is constructed with a threaded screw-top lid and includes a felt base to protect your surfaces.

To allow for different ways of remembering, the collection includes full-size, sharing, and keepsake urns, so a family can choose one piece or several. For those who wish to personalize the tribute, we can engrave a name and dates directly onto the metal in a two-tone style.

The anchor has been a badge for as long as it has been a tool. It appears on the flags and coats of arms of port cities, coastal regions, and institutions with anything to do with the sea. A fouled anchor, which has its own cable wrapped around it, is worn as insignia by services on both sides of the Atlantic.

The vocabulary of the craft is just as old. The flukes are the arms that hook on rock or bury themselves in soft ground, the line running back to the boat is the rode, and the ratio of rode paid out to the depth of water is the scope. Too little scope and the best anchor in the world drags.

For a family, the design on the urn is what the anchor already meant in that house, whether that was a uniform, a boat, or a person everybody could find.

Source: Wikipedia, Anchor

If they were the person who was always where they said they would be and who kept the habits of the uniform without making a fuss about them, then this design will read as theirs. A sibling or a friend will recognize the anchor not as a symbol of strength, but as the very word they used to describe them.

The family will look at this design and see the water, picturing them there, out where the world went quiet.

Our guide to selecting the right size urn