Part I - Kits Containing Blomberg Elements

The Kit	The Label	Weapons	Holy Tools	Other Tools
	Fairly fancy border	Pistol, Powder Horn, Bullets	Crucifix, Rosary, Prayer Book	Powdered Garlic, Serum, Mallet, Stake
	No border, charred (artificially)	Crucifix-Pistol, Bullet Mold, Silver Bullets, Powder	Crucifix pistol	Powdered Garlic, Serum, Stake
	Very fancy border, single column list	Crossbow, Bolts	Portable Crucifix, Holy Water	Flour of Garlic, Serum, Syringe, Stake
	Abbreviated label with partial text	Pistol, Powder Horn	Crucifix	Vials, Stake, Forceps, Pliers, Medical Scissors, Razor
	Full text label	Pistol, Bullets	Crucifix, Rosary, Holy Water	Garlic Flower, Brimstone, Serum, Stake, Candle
	Water damaged Label	Pistol, Bullets	Crucifix	Stake, Garlic, Magnifying Glass
	Simple border, water damage	Pistol, Bullets	Crucifix	Garlic Flower, Brimstone, Serum, Stake, Hardwrare

Part II - Non-Blomberg Kits

The Kit	The Label	Weapons	Holy Tools	Other Tools
	Latin Inscriptions	Knife	Crucifix, Romanian Prayer Book, Holy Materials	Mallet, Stakes, Garlic, Serum, Syringe, Pliers
	Deus Vult (God wills it)	Pistol (Irish), Bullets (Crossed)	Crucifix, Holy Water	Stake, Garlic

Part III - In Support of Vintage Vampire Kits

As German translators listed at our local Roseburg, Oregon library, my wife and I were contacted several years ago by a gunsmith who specialized in black powder arms, to translate a couple of articles. The articles turned out to be a list of instructions as to how to use Professor Ernst Blomberg's "Vampire Killing Kit", a thank you note to a Belgian gunsmith and the recipe for his "New Potion" from what I recall of the info (I didn't copy them), there were instructions on how to utilize the potion, which consisted of Holy Water, garlic extract, honey, and salt, each having scientific reasons for their being in the potion. The instructions were very detailed, they told of how to safely load the gun using the powder measure, how to appy the wadding and the silver bullet. (It even included an alternative method for placing linen in after the bullet to assist in "shooting at a downward angle"). It stated the cross was made of ivory and had a brass thread at the base which could be used to "screw into the wooden stake and provide additional stabilization when pressing through the chest into the heart". The instructions included the packing detail for the boxes contents.

After we had provided this gunsmith with the translation, he brought a prototype of the kit as had made it. He'd antiqued the gun and even the purplish colored cloth the kit was lined with. His plan was to sell the kits to the "people in Hollywood and other places who buy anything just to have it."

Can you tell me if you know anything about the pamphlet (apparently written by Professor Ernst Blomberg) called The Vampire, that was included with some of these kits? It seems to have been printed in London by John E. Taylor, Little Green Street.

Well, for what it's worth several (but not many) men with the name Ernst Blomberg come up when doing searches on ancestry.com, none have adequate information to suggest that any of them are professors. I did find an Ernest Von Blomberg in an insane asylum in California in 1920, he was 51 at the time. But I digress, information provided "implies" that this Prof Blomberg is from somewhere outside of the United states (assuming that the kits are real). now, I did find some other information while doing a search in Sweden's 1890 Census. They have a Ernst Blomberg who was born in 1874.

Here's a couple more 1800s Blombergs from searches:

ERNST DIEDRICH WILHELM BLOMBERG:
CHristening- 23 DEC 1827
Evangelisch,Heiden, , Lippe, Germany

ERNST LUDWIG WERNER BLOMBERG:
Christening- 22 JUL 1814
Evangelisch, Hausberge, Westfalen, Preussen

I'm very interested by any informations about vampire killing kits. Especially the instructions... There are a lot of fakes around, but some are uthenticals. Nicolas Plomdeur was a gunsmith from Liege (Belgium) but started to works in Paris around the 1850's.
Some vampire killing kits were produced in what was Germany, Austria and Hungaria during the nineteenth century. The Surnateum (see below) possess a antique one in his collections for more than a century now. Fakes are very easy to detect.

Well, there's a Belgian gunsmith by the name of Nicolas Plomdeur; some of his works are in Liege's museum of Weapons.

The firearm was obtained and blessed sometime after 1789, when the Church authorized vampire hunting, and established a force to do so. In 1820, this pistol was converted from flintlock to percussion-cap. Falling into subsequent disuse, the pistol came to a collector in 1877, at which time Professor Blomberg was assembling these vampire killing kits. The kit came into the collection of the Surnateum after 1888....

My brother has a beautiful pair of handguns from the mid 1800s produced by a gunsmith called Plomdeur in Paris.The name Plomdeur appears on the box, on the guns and on the gunpowder flask... All this make it hard to believe that the Gunsmith Plomdeur never existed.

Plomdeur was a gunsmith from Liege, he moved to Paris (France) in the early nineteenth. A reference about him in "les armuriers liégeois" (the gunsmith from Liege) p 130.
I'm also curious about the vkk in Ripley's museum.

"I have also visited the Surnateum in Brussels, Belgium. They keep one of these kits. My colleague from the Londerzeelse Archeologen Vereniging verified its authenticity on a rational basis: all objects within the box were from the epoch they claimed to be. Professor Siegfried Bracke from the Köllner Waffen Verein also confirmed that the gun was indeed from a rather well known gunsmith from Liège named Nicolas Plomdeur. No fiction here either.The religious markings I examined were neither constructed nor added: again, all was what it seemed to be.

In the library of the Universität zu Lübeck, there are several courses from one Professor Ernest Freiherr von Blomberg, who was a Professor of Zoology from 1856 until 1903, the year he died. The man seems to have had an obsession with shapeshifters and other creatures alike, for he wrote a rather unreadable book on it, Die Verwandlung im Prinzipus: Tiere une Maenschen und Ihre Gottlose Vereinen, ed. 1869. This book is real, the man is real and his decendents are also real."

Part IV - In Support of Modern Forgery Vampire Kits

Hi there! You should know that all the quotes on your site are a load of codswallop. The reason is this: The whole VAMPIRE KILLING KIT myth is purely the result of my very fertile imagination and I produced "The Original" in 1972. Nicolas Plomdeur the Gunsmith in Liege and Professor Ernst Blomberg are not and have never been real people. I still have an original copy of the label from the box and am astounded to learn how my joke has caused so much interest and "FAKERY"

"My story starts in or around 1970 when I was employed in the printing industry. My hobby was buying, selling and refurbishing antique guns. I sold mainly at the famous Portobello Market in London. My usual stock of guns for sale was only 10-20 at any one time and these tended to be of superior quality. I had a number of regular clients who arrived every week to see if I had any new stock. One of my regulars wanted a fine flintlock pistol and asked me to take in part exchange a Belgian percussion pocket pistol. I grudgingly agreed and allowed him £15.00 off the price of the flintlock.

So, here it is, a poor quality pocket pistol in mediocre condition! What to do with it? That was my question. Having an extremely fertile imagination and being an avid reader, I was inspired. It occurred to me that I could produce something unique that would be a great advertising gimmick and would attract people to my stall. The Vampire Killing Kit was on its way.

I had recently been reading a nineteenth century book on the manufacturing of various types of guns, specifically percussion and the language of the book helped me in my setting up of the label for the kit. I was very careful to produce an item, which as it was unique was also as perfect as I could make it. The type used for the heading of the label was very old and whilst not Victorian, nevertheless was acceptable to that period. I hand set the label myself and the copy I used was printed on a hand operated press using the fly leaf of a book printed in 1850.

Regarding Professor Ernst Blomberg and the Gunmaker of Liege, Nicholas Plomdeur, both these gentlemen were figments of my imagination and I was amazed to find mention on a Website of Nicholas Plomdeur’s early career in Paris.

...

A breakdown of the kit follows

(1) Good quality Victorian Walnut Box
(2) Unnamed box lock pocket pistol with Liege proof marks
(3) Silver Bullets. These were difficult to produce due to the higher melting point of silver when compared to lead
(4) Powdered flowers of garlic in an original Victorian medicine bottle
(5) A wooden stake with a silver point
(6) Professor Blomberg’s Serum: produced in Harley Street, London, made from mainly fluorescing salts. In an original Victorian medicine bottle
(7) An original ivory crucifix
(8) The pistol accessories, including a solid silver gunpowder flask, an original bullet mould, box of percussion caps, etc.

As can be seen from the above, no expense was spared, enabling me to produce a totally unique item. Can’t possibly be a fake can it! This was not a copy of anything that existed. To encourage interest, I priced the kit at £1000, believing that it would cause some interest, but certainly put anyone off buying it. On the first day at Portobello Road, I loaned the kit to a friend who specialised in the weird and wonderful. A well known Hollywood Star, who was best known for his ‘hammy’ horror roles expressed a lot of interest in it, but said he couldn’t afford it. Well, it soon did sell and it occurred to me that I had really got my horror stories mixed up: wooden stakes and garlic are ok to combat vampires, but silver bullets are for werewolves; aren’t they?

So, that’s how it all started, I seem to have spawned a lovely silly myth and I wonder how many of “Professor Blomberg’s Vampire Killing Kits” are around. It is interesting to note that the majority of kits produced use both of my invented persons, ie Professor Blomberg and Nicholas Plomdeur. Additionally they seem to like my phraseology, ie, use of words such as populace and manifestations of evil. What this shows of course, is that they are all copies of my original and that includes the kit which fetched $12,000 at Sothebys and the kit which fetched $21,000 in the States."

I have in my hands a treatise by Prof. Charles Blomberg, "The Creature Vampyre" and there is described the use of all this parafernalia; however, both book and professor are fictitious creations, edited by Fear No Evil (Wallace, Idaho). I fear that the entire box is a well-done, beautiful and detailed fake.

This book, authored by "Charles Blomberg" instead of our dear Ernst, is currently available for purchase, indicating that it is a recent creation (probably published in 1998), perhaps inspired by the plagarized Ernst Blomberg pamphlet. No claims to authenticity are made.

Fake! If the kits are for travellers venturing to eastern europe, why are the labels in english rather than german or french ( and obviously modern typeface)? Why are the cartridge boxes marked "eley kynoch" (an english brand of cartridge) rather than with the name of one of the german cartridge manufacturers who had a near monopoly on the continent? The revolver looks like a cheap belgian "suicide special" with strong resemblance to the smith and wesson #2 of the 1870's. To box up a revolver worth a few hundred dollars with a bunch of spurious accessories and sell it for $12,000 reeks of a swindle

Is This Kit "Real?"
When it was first given to the museum we thought it might be real. Although vampires don't really exist, we knew that some people in the past thought they did. And the objects in the case - a bullet mold, pistol, glass syringe, and others - seemed authentic. Most were typical of the mid-1800s.

In recent years, however, we've seen may similar kits. All have the label of "Professor Blomberg," but all are a little different. They are in assorted cases, and their contents vary. Some contain objects that have been altered to appear old. The number of these kits appearing suddenly on the antiques market, along with their questionable contents, made us suspicious.

We now believe this kit was assembled in the 20th century, and passed off as "real." Its contents have been gathered and placed in an old case modified to receive them. The paper labels have been artificially "aged." Traditionally, vampire lore has been part of many cultures around the world. But the contents of this case better reflect the fiction of modern books and films than the folk beliefs of earlier Americans and Europeans.


Report on Scientific Testing of the Vampire Kit...
Testing completed recently by the Winterthur Museum Analytical Laboratory (Winterthur, Delaware) has confirmed many of our suspicions abou the date and origins of this kit. While most of the items contained in it are consistent with the mid-1800s, the paper labels and other additions are more recent

The paper used in the labels contains "flourescent optical brightening agents," introduced into paper manufacture about 1945. Similarly, the glass in the magnifier is modern, as is the adhesive used to secure the mother-of-pearl facing to the cross. The so-called "silver bullets" are actually made of pewter.

The kit is a product of someone's late twentieth-century imagination, though composed mostly of nineteenth-century pieces. Unfortunately, we still do not know specifically to whose imagination we should attribute it. Still, as Winterthur scientists concluded, "the kit remains a delightful tongue-in-cheek tribute to the popularity of vampire literature."

Part V - Inferences Towards Conclusions

Blomberg Kits are Assembled Fakes

1 - The wide variance of Blomberg kits, contents and labels suggests that many of the Blomberg kits were assembled from vintage parts - old gun boxes, etc.
2 - De Winter makes a compelling case, and he has been vigorous in making it a public matter. If a vintage firearms dealer was seeking to sell degraded weapons, he would presumably have access to a collection of odd and mismatched boxes from incomplete sets.
3 - An increasing bulk of evidence and opinion supports that all Blomberg kits are modern assemblies of parts in a forged context. The plagarized pamphlet attributed to Blomberg underscores a lack of credibility.
4 - The Mercer Museum has scientifically debunked a Blomberg kit - it may not be from 1972, but it is certainly not from 1900.

Some Vampire Killing Kits May Be Antique

1 - Statements of pre-existant kits in museums suggests that there are some kits that have remained in complete assembly prior to de Winter's claim of beginning production of forged kits around 1970. If these statements are true, then some kits are indeed vintage, if not vintage 'tourist kits.'
2 - The detailed account of an extensively detailed German text (and letter to Plomdeur) by Blomberg falls outside the pattern of apparent fakes. This reported German text includes the Serum recipie and unorthodox firearms techniques ('shooting down'). No corresponding text has been seen in any of the Blomberg Kits. An examination of such a document would shed light on whether there is a kernel of truth to the Blomberg legend.
3 - Non-Blomberg kits suddenly seem more credible by merit of their disassociation with Blomberg.