Originally published at: This elegant kit for killing vampires sold at auction for $15,000 | Boing Boing
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Wonder if it’s the same as the “antique” kits you can buy from Etsy for about a $1k. They’re neat artworks at least.
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Was it some item that came with a special edition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula?
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Well that kit doesn’t cover all vampire stuff
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Are the pistols for challenging Dracula to a duel? Or are there silver bullets in case he’s hanging with the Wolfman?
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It is just me or does this price seem a bit low if it’s actually an authentic 19th century kit? I haven’t priced out antique pistols but I would think that those alone might easily fetch $3k for the pair even if they didn’t come with the rest of the stuff.
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Reminds me of this tweet
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I do believe in being prepared.
Kathy wants.
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It’s all about the provenance.
The 19th century item apparently belonged to British nobleman Lord Hailey.
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Just how common were these kits in the 19th century though? Dracula wasn’t published until 1897 so there’s very little of the 19th century where Vampires were a big part of popular culture.
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All I’m saying is that it could be an object owned by a famous person or an object made by a famous person or an object that was involved in a famous occurrence. That’s generally how prices are arrived at in auctions.
So my guess is some folks don’t give much of a damn about Lord Hailey.
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I’m just going to assume 100% of these things are modern replicas of a thing I’m not convinced ever actually existed.
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BoingBoing, we’ve been down this road. They’re novelties/artworks at most. Couldn’t have been more than a year or two ago someone posted about this.
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And coming from me–someone who loves vampire lore.
Recommended reading:
The Vampire: A New History https://a.co/d/3G6WuwK
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They didn’t exist. This is clearly fake, probably made from authentic 19th century artefacts but not assembled like this at the time.
People weren’t stupid back then and didn’t think gothic horror novels were literally true.
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The novels were inspired by an amalgamation of past reports and superstitions, and the commuities that believed they were haunted by a vampire came up with various ways of dispatching them (or preventing them from rising again, rather).
These kits are sort of a summary inspired by the fiction writings.
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Still being sold on the websites of Trump, Alex Jones, and GOOP.
People who live by the “sucker born every minute” motto.
Indeed. But a modern one, not a contemporary one, is my point.
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