Vampire killing kit con fools museums
MUSEUMS and private collectors have been conned out of thousands of pounds for fake vampire hunting kits.
A British expert has found wooden boxes containing crucifixes, wooden stakes and vials of holy water were not used by real-life Van Helsings in the 19th century as claimed.
Scientific tests have revealed many of the kits were put together when actor Christopher Lee donned the Dracula cape in the 1958 Hammer film version.
Others marketed under the name of vampire expert Professor Ernst Blomberg of Germany date from the 1930s and there is no evidence Blomberg existed.
The investigation was launched by the Royal Armouries in Leeds, after it purchased a kit for £7,500, believing it was a historical novelty.
The wooden box contained a crucifix, pistol, wooden stakes and mallet, and vials of holy water, holy earth and garlic paste.
Armouries’ Keeper of Firearms Jonathan Ferguson found that while the individual parts were most likely Victorian, it was probably put together in the 1970s.
He then launched a painstaking probe involving subjecting a number of similar kits to tests including X-rays and checks on ink, paper, glue and the boxes themselves.
None of the kits out of the 100 regularly found to be changing hands at auction were exactly alike but he was able to establish that all of them were clever fakes.
The Royal Armouries prize exhibit unravelled after an X-ray revealed a rogue screw and that the box was made after 1920.
Mr Ferguson said: “Nowhere was there evidence to support real vampire slayers carting about one of these kits. Though constructed from antique boxes and contents, they were most likely not produced until the era of the classic Hammer vampire movies.
“There will be some who feel cheated. One kit I examined belonged to a millionaire who had dreamed of owning one and paid thousands for it.”