Around 1970, when movies and TV series starring Dracula helped revive interest in Eastern Europe’s ancient bloodthirsty undead, dealers started catering to the burgeoning market for antiques related to vampires. Worn wooden boxes full of tarnished weapons, said to kill or at least gross out vampires, surfaced widely at auctions. They were said to have been assembled centuries ago as portable equipment to protect travelers. Prices soon reached tens of thousands of dollars each for the vampire-killing kits, which are typically fitted with pistols, wooden stakes, Bibles, crucifixes and rosaries, plus bottles of garlic powder, holy water and herbal potions.
Dozens of the kits have found their way into museum collections. Visitors flock to see them. Nobody seems to mind that in the last few years, academics have pored through archives and conducted scientific tests indicating how many of the kits now floating around are late-20th-century novelties.
Full Article: http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/vampire-killing-kits
Full Article: http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/vampire-killing-kits
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