[Al Skierkiewicz]

The simplest thing to do in this situation would be to get a line operated high voltage transformer with a secondary winding of 300 volts center tap. (I am guessing right now at the numbers) In a full wave rectifier, you might be able to get 200 volts DC to charge the caps or to fire the energizing coil. Transformer cost in the $50 + range new, total supply less than $100 (fuse, line cord, diodes and trerminal strips). This is a common transformer in tube type equipment and might be found in a junk TV or radio or at a Hamfest.
What Phil is trying to make is what some people call a "whistler supply". It uses a low voltage DC power source like a bank of batteries, running an oscilator to produce an AC voltage capable of driving a low voltage primary winding on a transformer. The secondary winding is a high voltage winding much the same as the linear supply described above. The difference is the transformer core. At 60 Hz you need a lot of iron to couple from the primary to secondary windings. At 1.5 kHz or above, the core becomes more efficient and so the need for a heavy iron core is diminished. MOst often these supplies are actually running at much higher frequencies like 10-15 kHz. When they operate, the supply can be heard as whistling. This type of supply is comon in a camera photo flash unit when first turned on. Since you need an oscillator and high power driver (sometimes the same device) this is a much more complex device. The upside is the transformer is a fraction of the weight of a line operated supply. However, 200 volts is still 200 volts regardless of how you get there.
High voltage batteries were plentiful at one time when portable radios were tube operated. Finding them now is next to impossible.