On Every Goths Wish List: Vampire Killing Kits

They've been popping up on the Internet for years, and selling on eBay and at auctions for some crazy prices. Often reported to be from the 19th century there is a sense of dark gothic mystery about vampire killing kits. The contents and style varies, but generally they consist of an antique wooden box, one or more crucifixes, small bottles containing holy water, garlic or consecrated earth. Often they come with an old copy of the Bible, maybe a mirror, a gun with silver bullets and a mallet with a number of stakes. Whatever the contents, these vampire hunting kits are an intriguing phenomena.

A name that crops up time and time again in relation to these kits is Professor Ernst Bloomberg, and that these kits were supposedly made as tourist items for people who were following the trail of the literary Dracula to Transylvania. Here in lies a problem already, as though many of these kits are claimed to be from the 1800s, Bram Stoker's novel Dracula wasn't published until 1897. So the window of opportunity for hundreds of these kits to be made in the 1800s is very slim, and very unlikely.
In reality the whole idea of authentic antique vampire killing kits is a huge and elaborate hoax. There is no real evidence of there ever having been an Ernst Bloomberg, despite kits claimed to have been made by him selling for many thousands. One Michael De Winter is often quoted as claiming he invented the whole idea back in the early 70s. He claims to have made up the name of Bloomberg, and created the first kit as a way of drawing people to a market stall he had at the Portobello Market in London. The kit eventually sold, and he claims spawned the whole myth. That all other kits that have appeared since are copies of his original fake. Although this is disputed by a website called www.surnateum.org who claim to have a kit built by Bloomberg, that they've had in their collection since the 19th century. So therefore claiming that there was a historical Bloomberg and that some of these kits are "authentic". Reading the supposed evidence from various sources could drive you crazy, but at the end of the day there seems to be no concrete evidence of these kits ever being manufactured during the later part of the 19th century. Even if all the elements of these clever constructions date from that period. Fake or not, vampire hunting or killing kits as they are known, are wonderfully weird cultural items.
Whether some of these enigmatic objects were genuinely created as tourists tat in the late 19th or early 20th century, or that some bloke on the Portobello Market started the whole thing, they are beautifully crafted things. The care that has gone into the authenticity of these fakes makes them desirable.  Fake or not, love has gone into the creation of many of these kits. And at the end of the day that's all that really matters. As outsider art objects created by whoever it may be, vampire killing kits have gained a place in the quirky cultural landscape of the weird. As Jonathan Ferguson as curator at National Museum of Arms and Armour in the UK said, "Although I had set out to 'debunk' their very existence, I came to realize that these enigmatic objects transcend questions of authenticity. They are part of the material culture of the gothic; aspects of our shared literary and cinematic passions made physical." 
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