Victorian vampire-slaying kit up for auction in Yorkshire *UPDATE - SOLD £7.5K!*

[Siliconous Skumins]

The "kits" *sort of* existed in the Victorian and  Edwardian eras - and much, much earlier...  There are only a *few* genuine "Vampire killing kits", but they nearly always associated with a religious man (a priest, vicar, etc), and nearly always from a roughly eastern European country with strong supernatural beliefs or customs. But certainly they are unlike the well presented and constructed kit in the BBC article. Or any of the VKKs that do the rounds every so often...

Typically they consisted of nothing more than the standard paraphernalia associated with the religion in question - Bible / prayer book, holy water or similar (including silver metal), associated religious items (charms, Icons, holy relics, etc). Basically that standard stuff that you would likely find in a priests bag. However a few did believe vamps existed, and so would carry a few specific items, but nothing that he wouldn't usually carry or be associated with. I'm only aware of ONE case of a genuine kit associated with a "vampire slaying priest", in which there was anything remotely typical of vampire killing kits - a wooden stake and mallet. I don't remember the details, but the priest was from around the latter years of the Victorian period, and I believe there is photograph of him with his bag, and multiple accounts of him possesing such a kit. I'm not sure if he believed in vamps or not, or if he simply carried those items to allay the fears of those who did think a vamp was stalking them. I favour the latter... 

For the most part, most religions would associate "Vampires" with standard demonic posesion and associated exorcism rituals.

Bodies suspected of being vampires would be dug up, turned over and a large stone / rock jammed into their mouth to prevent them from "eating the dead" buried along side them, or feeding from the blood of the living. Or the bodies would be staked to the coffin / ground to prevent escape - often with a "groan" as gas from decomp escaped past the vocal cords - or a very loud and presumably rotten smelling fart as it escaped via the other route!    Funny how they never mention the farting much in vampire lore...  Maybe a standard part of a VKK should be a gas mask! 


SS

[Captain Lyerly]

Yes, I am aware of the priests' paraphernalia; but they hardly qualify as 'kits', as you point out.  So to refer to them as such really only clouds the issue.  Insofar as the antiques trade goes, the "back story" of these things being put together either seriously or as a joking tourist item is simply wrong.

The recent case in Bulgaria, where there were some corpses exhumed with what seems to be measures in place to prevent them returning to life only goes further in disproving the case - the stakes were actually iron, not wood.

If Tennants bother to reply, I will certainly let all know what they say.



Cheers!

Chas.

[Siliconous Skumins]

From the average VKK if you take out the garlic paste, stakes / mallet and the gun, you left with standard tools of the trade. So I guess all a "kit" consists of is the addition of any of those items not associated with normal use... Grey area at best really.

The recent case in Bulgaria, where there were some corpses exhumed with what seems to be measures in place to prevent them returning to life only goes further in disproving the case - the stakes were actually iron, not wood.

Actually, I would be surprised to find a wooden stake - the coffin didn't survive, so why would a bit of tree branch...
I suspect wood stakes were used at times, but few / none have survived and been found. Also the Iron stakes harks back to what I mentioned earlier with the 'purity of metals', silver was not as traditional as a protective metal - iron was the material of choice. Iron shavings were placed beneath a child's cradle, a necklace with an iron nail was worn, other iron objects were placed strategically around the place needing protection, and coffin lids were nailed down with iron nails. Old Hungarian / Romanian faith believed that pure metals could be toxic to evil, and this notion spread outwards over time.

SS

[Captain Lyerly]

Oh, yeah - for your first point, though, the packaging for sale to the layman, "tourist souvenir" or not, is the main thing.

If there were any such thing as a VKK in period, it would have been the personal equipment of an Exorcist, a priest.  To claim that there was a purpose-built kit, tongue-in-cheek or not, in the Victorian period, for sale to anybody outside the Church is the ludicrous point.

Have heard nothing at all from Tennants.  But it has only been one day.



Z

[Dr von Zarkov]

A bit off-topic, one admits, but no home should be without this kit:
In Case of Vampire, Break Glass

[kidkunjer]

If it comes with silver bullets for the pistol, that might add considerably to the value!

I looks great. I'd love to own one, but not at this price sadly =[

Might have to make one myself though.

that's werewolves! vampyres have no problem with silver.

Actually they do. Well, it depends a bit of which version of vampire history you use, but it is out there in active use. The concept of silver being toxic to vampires is as 'faith based' as crosses. Unless they are an Agnostic vamp, in which case neither would affect them... 
Successful on-screen silver poisoning of vampires in: Dracula (1979), From Dusk to Dawn (1996), Dracula (1997), Vampires (1998), Blade (1998), Blade 2 (2002), Vampire Hunter D (2001)

Silver is considered to be a metal of purity and has been used for protection against evil in almost every world culture throughout history. Silver can be melted down to form amulets, jewelry, bullets, daggers and religious symbols such as crucifixes. Silver amulets and daggers can be put into the ground above the grave to prevent evil spirits from escaping. Silver nails drove into coffin lids are said to help prevent evil spirits from rising from the grave.
Silver being associated with vampires comes from an old Romanian tradition.


SS

well, i stand foolishly corrected having in fact quite a large collection of books on vampiric folklaw back in england... and although i haven't read them since the whole twilight thing its really no excuse.

[Siliconous Skumins]

OH DEAR.....   

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-18555832



OH DEAR, OH DEAR.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-18583374

'Vampire-slaying kit' bought by Royal Armouries museum

The 19th Century box, containing a crucifix, pistols, wooden stakes and a mallet, was sold for £7,500 at an auction in North Yorkshire on Friday.

It had been left to a Yorkshire woman in her uncle's will.

The Royal Armouries said it expected the box would prove a major attraction when it went on display at the Clarence Dock museum later this year.

The box and its contents all date from the 19th Century but are likely to have been put together in the 20th Century.

It is thought it was produced to capitalise on the popularity of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula and the Hammer Horror Movies.

As well as the weaponry, the box contains a copy of the Book of Common Prayer from 1851 and a handwritten extract from the Bible which quotes Luke 19:27.

It reads: "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me."

Jonathan Ferguson, curator of firearms at the Royal Armouries, said: "These kits are often said to have been made as novelties in the Victorian period, but research shows they are later than this.

"We've yet to establish a firm date for our kit, but we know it will attract a lot of interest from our museum visitors."

Seven grand. SEVEN GRAND!!!!  WTF!!??   

Right that's it - I'm on the hunt for some antique bits and I'm going to start knocking these things out by the dozen!

SS

[Aleister Crow]

I am seriously in the wrong business. 

[Mr Addams]

Whats really mind blowing is that they paid £7500 knowing that it was almost certanly a modern assembly

[S.Sprocket]

A fool and his money are soon parted Mr. Addams

[von Corax]

A fool and his money are soon parted Mr. Addams

On the other hand, if a public museum bought it knowing it to be a hoax, and intends to display it presumably acknowledging it to be a hoax, one assumes that they expect to get their money's worth from it.

[Aleister Crow]

How much does anyone suppose the parts of the kit alone could have been worth?

I know old firearms are valuable, and the cross, book and rosary could possibly be worth quite a bit.

A bottle of really old garlic... probably not. 

But could it be possible that the pieces of the kit could be worth enough for the total?

[Captain Lyerly]

A fool and his money are soon parted Mr. Addams

On the other hand, if a public museum bought it knowing it to be a hoax, and intends to display it presumably acknowledging it to be a hoax, one assumes that they expect to get their money's worth from it.

I look forward to the Royal Armouries acting in a professional fashion, enlightening the public to the facts - that there are no originals, and this is an example of the fakes.  I won't be holding my breath.

Aleister - I would say the sum total of the actual antiques come out to about 1200 to 1500 pounds sterling.  At the most.  More likely, depending on the make and condition of the pistol, quite a bit less.  I could make a better one here for well under a thousand Dollars.  But even if I sold it as a repro, I am afraid someone would take it to an auction house and sell it as "real".




Cheers!

Chas.

[Mr Addams]

How much does anyone suppose the parts of the kit alone could have been worth?

I know old firearms are valuable, and the cross, book and rosary could possibly be worth quite a bit.

A bottle of really old garlic... probably not.  

But could it be possible that the pieces of the kit could be worth enough for the total?

The most expensive item in the kit is the pistol. But the prices vary greatly depending on rarity and condition.  A Victorian percussion pistol in good condition, with engraved fittings, would probably fetch between £750 & £1000, but then again for less than prime condition, you can halve that price, £200 to £500 is not unusual.
In poor condition, you can pick these up for as little as £150.

I took a look around some of the antique weapons sites, and a pair of pistols very similar to the one in the kit are available for £730.

After the pistols the next most valuable item is probably the box. I am not sure what these are worth, but after another look at ebay, I doubt that you would need to pay more than £200 for a suitable case.

You can buy a mid 19th Century book of common prayer, in good condition for less than £50

The rest of the items in the case are pretty unremarkable



EDIT - Just found another picture



The case contains 1) a rosary 2) crucifix 3) a handwritten psalm (Luke 20:27) 4) a pistol 5) four oak stakes 6) a bottle of consecrated earth 7) a common prayer book a wooden mallet 9) silver bullet mold 10) a cloth 11) two glass bottles containing garlic paste and holy water.

[Kathy_Davidson]

A fool and his money are soon parted Mr. Addams

On the other hand, if a public museum bought it knowing it to be a hoax, and intends to display it presumably acknowledging it to be a hoax, one assumes that they expect to get their money's worth from it.

But the Royal Armouries is free to enter

[Aleister Crow]

I look forward to the Royal Armouries acting in a professional fashion, enlightening the public to the facts - that there are no originals, and this is an example of the fakes.  I won't be holding my breath.

Aleister - I would say the sum total of the actual antiques come out to about 1200 to 1500 pounds sterling.  At the most.  More likely, depending on the make and condition of the pistol, quite a bit less.  I could make a better one here for well under a thousand Dollars.  But even if I sold it as a repro, I am afraid someone would take it to an auction house and sell it as "real".




Cheers!

Chas.

The most expensive item in the kit is the pistol. But the prices vary greatly depending on rarity and condition.  A Victorian percussion pistol in good condition, with engraved fittings, would probably fetch between £750 & £1000, but then again for less than prime condition, you can halve that price, £200 to £500 is not unusual.
In poor condition, you can pick these up for as little as £150.

I took a look around some of the antique weapons sites, and a pair of pistols very similar to the one in the kit are available for £730.

After the pistols the next most valuable item is probably the box. I am not sure what these are worth, but after another look at ebay, I doubt that you would need to pay more than £200 for a suitable case.

You can buy a mid 19th Century book of common prayer, in good condition for less than £50

The rest of the items in the case are pretty unremarkable



EDIT - Just found another picture



The case contains 1) a rosary 2) crucifix 3) a handwritten psalm (Luke 20:27) 4) a pistol 5) four oak stakes 6) a bottle of consecrated earth 7) a common prayer book a wooden mallet 9) silver bullet mold 10) a cloth 11) two glass bottles containing garlic paste and holy water.

Thank you, gentlemen. Shows how much I know about antiques. 

Looks like the maker of that kit just turned a really nice profit.

[Siliconous Skumins]

Even if I did believe the kit was genuine, there is one thing that immediately leaps out at me - the wooden mallet...





Anybody see what's wrong there?...

Look at the shaft. Does that look unusually smooth to anyone?  You know, the kind of smoothness that comes from longterm handling and use of wooden tools...

OK, so maybe it just had a very smooth sanded and polished handle.  Maybe.

Now look closely at the mallet head, notice anything?  Look closely at the head, notice the apparent colour change between the side face and the striking face. Also note the apparent rough wear around the edges and the non straight / gouged out sides on the striking face.

Add those together, and that's suggests to me that someone has taken an old tool that has seen a LOT of use, and has CUT THE STRIKING FACES OFF to hide the damage (hence the colour change) and attempted to blend it all together using a wax based polish.   

Here is a better pic of the whole kit: (right click, view image for full size).




Hmmm....copius amounts ofwax polish.  Is it just me, or does that box look a little later than victorian era...?  Style looks like an apothecary case though.


Looks like a fairly obvious modern fake, made with antique / old parts to me... 


SS

[polyphemus]

Rather than think in terms of authentic vs. forgery,(which raises the interesting question of how one forges something which may very well never have existed in the first place) it might be more useful to think of it as an art object. In that case the price is not so surprising, though admittedly it's not a bad return for a box full of odds and ends.

[Boston Jones]

I don't know, your deduction is from photographs which are often misleading. 

[Captain Lyerly]

It sort of leaped out at me when I looked at the close-up of the mallet.

Seriously, though.  A sociological examination of the phenomenon gives only one answer.  There are several websites that give you the tools to de-bunk every example ever seen; but the thing that gets to me is that there are NO in-period references to anything like this.  No mentions in news articles or letters.  Not even a mention in a work of fiction of the time.

But most telling - these were supposedly made over a period of time, and were even available mail-order.  Where are the ads?  Zero advertising.  None at all.  With the explosion of print advertising, handbills, and news adverts and such, it is almost impossible for something like this to have been available for sale without some echo in the ephemera of the time.

And it's just not there.



Chas.

[Mr Peter Harrow, Esq]

Does that mean my vampire skull in a glass dome is a fake?

Damn! I was hoping to sell it to the Royal Armouries when the paint is dry!

You know, I wonder if this wasn't made for The Armouries in the first place, and the sale a fake back to them as a stunt to generate publicity. If it was, looks like it worked!

If it was, I know at least two members of this forum with the background with the Armouries and the skills to have done this. If so, well done, nice work and you managed to fool almost all of the people almost all of the time.

Next for The Armouries, genuine Victorian Raygun?

[Captain Lyerly]

Next for The Armouries, a Director General who won't be "temporarily suspended pending a review of issues raised by..."?

Perhaps that is why they went for this, to distract the public from other woes.


Call me a cynic.


Chas.

[von Corax]

A fool and his money are soon parted Mr. Addams

On the other hand, if a public museum bought it knowing it to be a hoax, and intends to display it presumably acknowledging it to be a hoax, one assumes that they expect to get their money's worth from it.

But the Royal Armouries is free to enter

Yes, but they get funding from somewhere, and that funding is usually (at least on this side of the Pond) a function of attendance figures.

[Mr Addams]

I have almost finished collecting the components for my Vampire Killing kit, which is constructed mostly from modern materials, and is intended to fool no one. But whilst researching the various vamp kits and their contents, I found THIS interesting article.

I am prompted to write this true story of The Vampire Killing Kits, which have proliferated during the last few years since the coming of the Internet.

My story starts in or around 1970 when I was employed in the printing industry. My hobby was buying, selling and refurbishing antique guns. I sold mainly at the famous Portobello Market in London. My usual stock of guns for sale was only 10-20 at any one time and these tended to be of superior quality. I had a number of regular clients who arrived every week to see if I had any new stock. One of my regulars wanted a fine flintlock pistol and asked me to take in part exchange a Belgian percussion pocket pistol. I grudgingly agreed and allowed him £15.00 off the price of the flintlock.

So, here it is, a poor quality pocket pistol in mediocre condition! What to do with it? That was my question. Having an extremely fertile imagination and being an avid reader, I was inspired. It occurred to me that I could produce something unique that would be a great advertising gimmick and would attract people to my stall. The Vampire Killing Kit was on its way.

I had recently been reading a nineteenth century book on the manufacturing of various types of guns, specifically percussion and the language of the book helped me in my setting up of the label for the kit. I was very careful to produce an item, which as it was unique was also as perfect as I could make it. The type used for the heading of the label was very old and whilst not Victorian, nevertheless was acceptable to that period. I hand set the label myself and the copy I used was printed on a hand operated press using the fly leaf of a book printed in 1850.

Regarding Professor Ernst Blomberg and the Gunmaker of Liege, Nicholas Plomdeur, both these gentlemen were figments of my imagination and I was amazed to find mention on a Website of Nicholas Plomdeur’s early career in Paris.

To prove the authenticity of this document, I am now setting out the wording of the original label.

Vampire Killing Kit This box contains the items considered necessary, for the protection of persons who travel into certain little known countries of Eastern Europe, where the populace are plagued with a particular manifestation of evil known as Vampires. Professor Ernst Blomberg respectfully requests that the purchaser of this kit, carefully studies his book in order, should evil manifestations become apparent, he is equipped to deal with them efficiently. Professor Blomberg wishes to announce his grateful thanks to that well known gunmaker of Liege, Nicholas Plomdeur whose help in the compiling of the special items, the silver bullets &c., has been most efficient.

The items enclosed are as follows

(1) An efficient pistol with its usual accoutrements
(2) Silver Bullets
(3) An Ivory crucifix
(4) Powdered flowers of garlic
(5) A wooden stake
(6) Professor Blomberg’s new serum


A breakdown of the kit follows

(1) Good quality Victorian Walnut Box
(2) Unnamed box lock pocket pistol with Liege proof marks
(3) Silver Bullets. These were difficult to produce due to the higher melting point of silver when compared to lead
(4) Powdered flowers of garlic in an original Victorian medicine bottle
(5) A wooden stake with a silver point
(6) Professor Blomberg’s Serum: produced in Harley Street, London, made from mainly fluorescing salts. In an original Victorian medicine bottle
(7) An original ivory crucifix
( The pistol accessories, including a solid silver gunpowder flask, an original bullet mould, box of percussion caps, etc.


As can be seen from the above, no expense was spared, enabling me to produce a totally unique item. Can’t possibly be a fake can it! This was not a copy of anything that existed. To encourage interest, I priced the kit at £1000, believing that it would cause some interest, but certainly put anyone off buying it. On the first day at Portobello Road, I loaned the kit to a friend who specialised in the weird and wonderful. A well known Hollywood Star, who was best known for his ‘hammy’ horror roles expressed a lot of interest in it, but said he couldn’t afford it. Well, it soon did sell and it occurred to me that I had really got my horror stories mixed up: wooden stakes and garlic are ok to combat vampires, but silver bullets are for werewolves; aren’t they?

So, that’s how it all started, I seem to have spawned a lovely silly myth and I wonder how many of “Professor Blomberg’s Vampire Killing Kits” are around. It is interesting to note that the majority of kits produced use both of my invented persons, ie Professor Blomberg and Nicholas Plomdeur. Additionally they seem to like my phraseology, ie, use of words such as populace and manifestations of evil. What this shows of course, is that they are all copies of my original and that includes the kit which fetched $12,000 at Sothebys and the kit which fetched $21,000 in the States.

Michael de Winter

[Captain Shipton Bellinger]

Mr de Winter's claims have been questioned, largely because Blomberg and Plomdeur were historical characters and not an invention.

Again, Spookytales makes good reading, especially this page.