According to Ye Ancient Legendary Tome of E-Bay Marketing, 19^th century travelers through the wild Carpathian regions of Eastern Europe would often bring along a special “vampire hunting kit,” containing an assortment of weapons against the threat of the undead. Supposedly you could even acquire these from the concierge of any reasonably well-appointed Eastern European hotel. A handful of these kits have survived intact to the present day, and you can still find one every now and then on E-Bay.

The whole story is implausible for several reasons. One is that the genuine Carpathian vampire folklore is so different from the Dracula stereotype as to be almost unrecognizable as the same legend. So, a lot of the items in these kits might help you if you're stranded in the Buffy universe, but would be of little value against a hungry Carpathian vrkolak. Another is that hotels for travelers would have been unlikely to cater in any serious way to what the owners would probably have seen as rural superstition.

The real explanation for these vampire hunting kits is probably that the popularity of the novel “Dracula” led to a brief tourism boom in the Carpathians, and the vampire hunting kits were sold as kitschy tourist-trap souvenirs. Perhaps you really could get one from the concierge of your hotel, but he'd probably be laughing at you as soon as his back was turned. The kits are part of the history of pop culture merchandising, not vampire folklore. But I would still love to have a good look at one!