The Big Bopper [ tickets ]'s casket is expected to go on the auction block within the next few weeks to raise money for a tribute to the pop star who died 50 years ago in a plane crash that also took the lives of Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens.

The family of J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson hope to keep his memory alive with a musical show that will be financed by selling the macabre artifact on eBay.

Richardson's 16-gauge steel casket was exhumed in 2007 from his grave at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Beaumont, TX, so it could be moved to a more visible location with a life-size statue and historical marker. The Big Bopper was reburied in a sleek new coffin donated by the Batesville Casket Co., which made the original.

The old casket has been at the Texas Musicians Museum in Hillsboro since it was unearthed.

When exhumed, forensic experts were able to examine the singer's remains, which had not received an autopsy after his tragic death. The autopsy found that the Bopper had died of crash-related injuries.

The 2007 disinterment reportedly revealed a well-preserved corpse, dressed in a black suit and a blue-and-gray striped tie. He wore socks but no shoes. His thick brown hair was still perfectly coiffed in his 1950s flat-top, according to the AP report.

The day of the plane crash that took the lives of Richardson, Holly and Valens--Feb. 3, 1959--has been dubbed "the day the music died."