Vampire-hunting technologies of yore

Over at LA Weekly, a photo gallery of kits used to slay vampires. This may shock you, but at least some of these are hoaxes. (thanks, Calpernia Addams!)

• [Avram / Moderator]

  NodeHat @1: Makes me wonder if there’s a thriving market for saints’ finger bones and whatnot on ebay.

  There is, or at least used to be. EBay prohibits the sale of human remains, so sellers get around that by offering the reliquary for sale, and mentioning in the item description that there’s a relic inside.

• [jfrancis]

  Calpernia Addams submitted this?

  bb – it’s time for a Calpernia Addams song post. I’m sure she must have a new one.

• [Anonymous]

  A real vampire hunter needs is a whip, meat in the wall, and finding that graveyard duck.

• [The Lizardman]

  The ones I have seen strike me as fantastic true historical artifacts – of hoaxes! Many of these have been exhibited with great success (fooling many) for over a century.

• [Tom Fury]

  I think I remember seeing something about this a while ago, maybe even on BB. As I recall they were all art projects. This kind of thing sticks with me because, you know, it’s vampires.

• [JayByrd]

  I saw one for $500 at a flea market in Rapid City, S.D., right after the Soviet Union broke up. (It looked old and had crosses, a stake and mallet.) Probably put together by some innovative laid-off GRU cop and imported to the U.S. through Brighton Beach.

• [Boba Fett Diop]

  Where’s Mr. Pointy?

• [Anonymous]

  I personally saw one such kit in a magick shop (The Occult Emporium, if I recall) in Pennsylvania in 1985. It was not for sale, merely on display as part of the shop owner’s private collection. He told us it was of Victorian vintage, and a European import.

  It was a beautiful setup, a wooden box lined with velvet. In its fitted compartments were vials of holy water, a silver container for holy wafers, and some kind of anointing oil. There were also six silver bullets of a smaller caliber. But the centerpiece was a crucifix – which was also a pistol! Van Helsing, eat your heart out!

  That was almost 25 years ago, and while it certainly might be a “fake”, it was an amazingly well-crafted one.

• [Anonymous]

  As an experienced gun collector, I can tell you that almost all of these “kits” are fakes.

  The theory is to take a whole bunch of old stuff and put it in a box, add a few fake modern items and sell the ensemble for far more than the cost of the individual items. The giveaway is the guns are almost always inexpensive “suicide special” type pistols that sell for $125-$200 on the collectors market.

  The same con has been used on gun collectors since the 1930′s, puting similar or identical pistols in a case with accesories and claiming it is a “set of duelling pistols” worth $10,000 instead of a couple of unrelated pistols worth $1,000-2,000 each.

• [ackpht]

  Outright fraud on eBay? Surely eBay wouldn’t allow that.

• [cognitive dissonance]

  this couldn’t possibly stop the twilight vampires… they sparkle.

• [Spookyland]

  Despite the fact that many of these kits are recently assembled forgeries, there seems to be evidence that some European hotels (especially around Romania) sold these as ‘tourist curiosities’ to cash in on the popularity of Dracula, published in 1897. Since profit was involved, it seems likely. I would consider these kits to be ‘genuine antiques‘ at the very least.

  (Warning – Self Promotion Follows)

  Spookyland has documented an extensive collection of vampire killing kits, as well as an investigation into Ernst Blomberg, creator of many vampire killing kits, a catalogue of vampire kit components and even a guide on how to find vampires and use your cool vampire killing kit.

  I’m still assembling my own kit in the meantime.

  Happy hunting,

  Mr. Spooky

• [The Lizardman]

  There are a number of them in various Ripley’s Odditoriums for those wishing to check one out in person – most of which are of the crucifix which is also a pistol variety described by anonymous

• [nosehat]

  This may shock you, but at least some of these are hoaxes.

  I’m not aware of a single one of these that’s an actual historical artifact.

  Makes me wonder if there’s a thriving market for saints’ finger bones and whatnot on ebay. ;)