Vintage vampire hunting kit sparks bidding frenzy — includes bones and bloody stains
Fangs for the memories.
A vintage vampire hunting kit in Florida has sparking a bidding war online thanks to its massive size, rare artifacts and tiny zombie priest carving.
The kit, which dates back to the mid-1800s, was discovered by Zev Antiques in Hallandale Beach, just north of Miami, and listed on Live Auctioneers, where dozens of anonymous bidders staked the price at $3,000.
Antiques artillery expert Vlad Krechmar, who joked that his true name was “Vlad the Impaler” after the blood-thirsty Romanian legend, told The Post that the coffin-shaped kit was “most likely a violin case customized to hold all necessary items” for a swift kill.
That includes Vampire 101 items like two wooden stakes, a giant crucifix and a Belgian pistol that Krechmar said could hold lead bullets “coated with various potions” to murder the (usually) immortal monsters.
The kit, which weighs 11.4 pounds, also comes with “spiritual items” like a prayer book with Latin verses, a glass-blown bottle marked for holy water and a wooden mallet branded with a burnt cross, which Krechmar explained was used “to stake the body to the ground!”
Two ornate metal canisters are also part of the kit — they would have held rosary beads, silver salt and even “consecrated ground,” a.k.a. dirt from a graveyard — along with a solid brass jar labeled “SEL,” or salt, that would be used to draw an “impenetrable circle” around Dracula and his friends.
The pièce de résistance — or at least, the one that’s the creepiest — is a large dagger with a handle shaped like a zombie priest, clutching a tiny version of the very mallet and stake included inside the vampire kit.
The bone of origin has not been identified, nor have the rust spots on the knife, which could conceivably be blood.
Vampire fandom has exploded this year as the third season of the “Interview With a Vampire“ franchise returns to TV screens, turning the actor Sam Reid into a goth pinup as the hedonistic (and usually shirtless) rock star Lestat de Lioncourt.
18 years ago, a very different vampire heartthrob — Edward Cullen from “Twilight,” played onscreen by Robert Pattinson — also sent thrills through teen viewers, stoking interest in vampire legends among millennial teens.
Krechmar said over the phone that he couldn’t disclose the original owner of the “mysterious” vampire kit, but the Sunshine State resident doesn’t think they’re one of the undead.
“They can go in the sunlight,” he admitted. “You know, Florida is hard for vampires.”
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