Vampire hunting kits get staked and it’s about time.
I’m sick and tired of these absurd “vampyre hunting killing kits” that have now become so prevalent and going for a fortune to the credulous. They are fake, fake, fake and if you buy one believing they are real, you are a in good company because recently a British museum purchased one for a lot of money. For fun Google that. The museum has now backtrack and say they knew what they were doing. In light of the explanation, I am reminded of the kid who tried a stupid trick on his bicycle and crashed: his explanation was, “I meant to do that”. Yeah.
I have been a follower of the excellent prop making site
Propnomicon and a consistent commenter on some of the enjoyable works that
Propnomicon showcases on his blog every day.
His efforts to tear away the mask of prop making and share helpful
how-tos and tutorials is a real help to prop makers everywhere. Over the years he featured a number of
“vampire hunting kits” some of which have a fair amount of work in them and
others are examples to avoid. I
heartily suggest if you like props, the works of H. P. Lovecraft and the
Cthulhu Mythos, you really need to visit Propnomicon’s web site.
After a few years of seeing these kits showing up on
Propnomicon (and in many, many other places too, such as eBay and auction catalogs), I finally decided to quit grousing
about the generally miserable assemblages and do a post on my own about the subject. Interestingly enough, I found that others had
already beat me to the punch several years before and had done so quite
well. My hat is off to these
conscientious researchers. So rather
than rehash a lot of text, see the below links to get the truth about when,
why, where and what vampire hunting kits are truly.
Most interestingly is the last link, but save it for last,
as the first links really set things up quite nicely. You need only Google CoastConFan to find my comments on vampire
kits, mostly on Propnomicon, so I won’t bore you with a rehash. But frankly, you really only need to follow
the below links to get at the truth quickly and easily.
His blog entry gave me a good overview and leads
to these three important blog entries, which appear to lead the source of
vampire hunting kits:
Three Spooky Land posts, which are well worth reading on the
subject of vampire kits.
Finally the core of the mystery is revealed by a reposting
of the explanation of the original prop and mythmaker himself on lesvampires.org
with the pay dirt blog entry. The
mystery is revealed when you click on the below link.
The Professor Blomberg
Vampire Killing Kit
THE TRUE ORIGIN OF THE MYTH
Author - Michael de Winter
THE TRUE ORIGIN OF THE MYTH
Author - Michael de Winter
Originally posted to SurvivalArts.com April 2005
So the truth is out and it has been out there since 2005 on
the web, just not exactly in the place I would have expected. So to get to the punch line: All-these-kits-are-fake. Can I make it any plainer? None of these are real and none of these
are really very old and few of them are worth much more than the combined value
of the components. If sold as modern
prop assemblages of a fantasy vampire kit, then there is no foul. But if sold as “real” then watch out.
By the way, as long as we are detoxing clichés, the whole
silver bullet kills lycanthrope trope proves to be a 1930s creation of the book
and movie industry, but that’s another irritating story. See my blog entry The Werewolf Paradigm –
Fun vs. Rationality, March 27, 2011
http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2011_03_01_archive.html
CoastConFan
CoastConFan
UPDATE 22 Jun 2014: in the
comments section, Graham1973 gives an excellent link to a discussion about silver
in reference to lycanthrophy in folklore.
Clearly there are indeed pre 1930 references to killing werewolves with silver. The upshot of the article is
that silver as an evil magic dissipator as used in these folklore stories that
date back some 300 years. The main
theme is that the silver item is a common thing like a silver button or coin
most often and it is fired at or above the evil being.
Oddly, there is not a great lot of literature cited about using non-projectile silver weapons such as maces, daggers or swords against such creatures. The additional interesting link is that generally the silver object in question is a personal object and a sort of ad hoc lightening rod against evil. The other thing is that the silver projectile is not grounded, in the sense of being connecting a kind of grounding circuit, which would be the case with a wielded silver mace or other silver appliance.
Oddly, there is not a great lot of literature cited about using non-projectile silver weapons such as maces, daggers or swords against such creatures. The additional interesting link is that generally the silver object in question is a personal object and a sort of ad hoc lightening rod against evil. The other thing is that the silver projectile is not grounded, in the sense of being connecting a kind of grounding circuit, which would be the case with a wielded silver mace or other silver appliance.
The other reference is about an assassination attempt
against a non lycanthrope in the hope that the would given by a silver bullet
would not heal. In this case it would
convey a sort of curse of non-healing.
I’d like to thank Graham1973 for this excellent listing about the general of silver in dissipating evil. I was unaware of the link and feel it is important enough to put into the body of the post so it won’t be overlooked.
I’d like to thank Graham1973 for this excellent listing about the general of silver in dissipating evil. I was unaware of the link and feel it is important enough to put into the body of the post so it won’t be overlooked.
I’ll also post
this on a previous blog entry, where it actually belongs, The Werewolf Paradigm.
A few other links of mine in the same vein:
The Logical Zombie, Nov 4 2011 http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2011/11/logical-zombie.html
The Logical Vampire – A brief overview on removing these
pests, Feb 9, 3013
Hourglass Vampire Hunting Kit, Jan 12 2013, a rather clever
take by one prop maker on the vampire kit
http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2013_01_01_archive.html
A Youtube video I made a couple of years ago: Starless Nosferatu, combining King Crimson’s song Starless and clips from the silent film Nosferatu
(1922) the video. Click the link to
view.
