An antique vampire-killing kit that sold Sunday includes a cross that fires silver bullets, garlic powder, a wooden stake, gunpowder and a mold for making more silver bullets.
Mail Tribune file photo
GRANTS PASS -- Vampires lurking about Puget Sound had better beware: A Seattle man was the top bidder for an antique vampire-killing kit auctioned here Sunday.
The man, who asked to remain anonymous, paid $12,000 for the century-old kit, one of about 1,000 unusual items sold during the weekend auction by Fain & Co. of Grants Pass, said company spokeswoman Stephanie Knisong-Ryan.
"We had a lot of inquiries about the vampire kit," she said. "There were four or five in the audience and at least three phone bidders. There was a lot of interest in it. Everybody wanted to see it."
The kit included an ivory crucifix that fires a silver bullet, a wooden stake, garlic powder, a small canister of gunpowder, a tiny bottle that had contained anti-vampire serum, several spare silver bullets and a mold for making more bullets.
The firm is owned by Grants Pass antique collectors Chris Fain and his wife, Valerie.
The kit was among items estimated to be worth more than $1 million. The items were auctioned during the past weekend.
"It was really successful -- everything went," Knisong-Ryan said. "But I can't divulge the amount."
The auction drew telephone bids from as far away as Italy as well as inquiries from Australia and Hong Kong, she said.
"We even had Wayne Newton bidding for a rifle on the phone," she said, noting the entertainer was the successful bidder for a Schutzen rifle, a circa 1880 .45-70 caliber custom-made in Germany.
But the vampire-killing kit, which had been the focus of media stories, was one of the highlights, Knisong-Ryan said.
The kit, built just before Bram Stoker's book "Dracula" was published in 1897, was apparently made by a Professor Ernst Blomberg. A Belgian gunmaker named Nicholas Plomdeur was credited with producing the unique gun.
