So Hallowe’en is around the corner and you’ve decided to fight evil this year by being a vampire hunter. Where do you start?
John Loper of Antiques & More in Coral Springs had an idea rolling around in his head in 2016, but it wasn’t until COVID-19 showed up that he was able to really start digging into what a vampire hunting kit would require, how to make it with high-quality antiques and reproductions and look authentic.
Fast forward to 2021, and Loper has put together many kits of varying sizes containing everything one might think of, and some surprises too! He took one of his works and sold it through Sotheby’s Auction House in New York. Other interested parties are the Royal Armouries in Leeds and Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Pictured is one of his larger kits, which is made of a velvet-lined wooden chest with a padlock and key, containing two removable gilt metal sconces — in case you are hunting at night, obviously.
Also included are two replica pistols, a pocket Bible, a strand of rosary beads, six wooden stakes and a mallet, seven crucifixes including one with a carved bone handle, one silvered pendant, and 33 glass vials. Everything a want-to-be vampire hunter will need. The vials could be used for holy water, or garlic (Does garlic salt count? Do you want to take the chance?), or any number of potions that the many vampire legends claim will drive out, stun, injure, or perhaps even kill one of these children of the night.
Other kits contain mirrors, 19th-century documents from funeral parlors, and more curios and religious artifacts. So if you want to be the Winchester brothers (from CW’s “Supernatural”) this Halloween, you know where to get the gear.