He's nattily dressed in a long tuxedo coat, vest and shirt, a dapper bowtie completing the ensemble.

He has no pants or shoes but otherwise gets full points for style.

She's naked and clutching a Bible, an old black veil gathered by her head.

Two skeletons, origins unknown, now reside in a Strasburg antiques shop.

"They probably started out life as medical experiments," their new owner, Bill Wood of Old Mill Antiques, says.

He probably meant to say they "started out death."

Wood bought the pair in September at Tom Hall Auctions in Schnecksville. The male sold for $900, the female for $950.

"Somewhere along the line, the Oddfellows got a hold of them," he says. "All the Oddfellows had skeletons."

The Independent Order of Oddfellows, a fraternal organization, used skeletons in their initiation rituals, Wood explains. Eventually, the skeletons ended up in a mortuary museum.

Nothing is known about the people who once inhabited these bones, Wood says. The male skeleton has been dated to around 1890, while the lady is older, circa 1870.

"I assume these are their original caskets," he says, nodding to the pair of narrow wooden boxes — hers varnished and lined with a black cloth, his covered in black fabric and lined in white.

Lacking names, Wood has dubbed the pair Jimmy Hoffa and Amelia Earhart.

Wood says he's been looking for human skeletons for some time — not out of a personal sense of morbidity, but rather an eye for what sells.

"I wouldn't want one of them in my house," he says. "But I've had another one in the store for 10 or 12 years. Everyone wants to buy him, but I never wanted to sell. So I decided to get these two."store.

He never named his origi-nal bone man, who reclines in a wooden coffin above the cash register at Wood's 215 Georgetown Road store.

"We just decided to leave him up there," Wood says. "He's a conversation piece.

"There isn't a week goes by, someone doesn't try to buy him. One guy wanted to make a coffee table out of him."

Finding an intact human skeleton for sale is rare, Wood says. Finding a pair is amazing.

"I've seen a half a dozen of them, and I've been doing this since 1980," he says. "I've owned three of the six.

"Generally, they go into someone's collection — if you're going to buy one, you're going to keep it."

Even better, he says, these specimens are intact.

"A few teeth is not a big issue, but you want all your fingers, toes and ribs," he says. "They're as complete as I've ever seen."

The bones are wired together, probably so they could be hung in a doctor's office, Wood says.

Jimmy, as Wood happily demonstrates, has a spring-loaded jaw that opens and closes.

Amelia's Bible probably was added as a prop by the Oddfellows, Wood notes.

A little investigation uncovers an inscription inside the book, made out to Billy Lee Drury, "from Mom and Dad," dated Easter 1930 in Peoria, Ill.

Calls are already coming in from across the country about the pair, Wood says.

"Halloween is coming," he says. "And we're looking for a good home for them."

Wood is selling the skeletons for $2,000 apiece, or $3,500 for the pair.

"We get more inquiries about skeletons now than we do for Chippendale chests," Wood says.

"The game has changed," he adds. "I'm primarily a furniture dealer, but I like to step out of the box now and then."

Wood taps Jimmy's casket and smiles. "Keep your eyes open," he says. "I'm looking for more."

tknapp@lnpnews.com