Treasure Hunts
Throughout history treasure hunting has been a popular pastime and some individuals make it a vocation.
Here are popular hunts of recent years.
Kit Williams published a picture book in 1979 containing hidden clues to locate a Golden Hare decorated with jewels. Two English physics professors solved it in 1982.
Where in the World is Carmen San Diego
A computer game marketed in 1988 by Broderbund quickly became an international phenomenon. There have been several offshoots of this mega-popular educational mystery game.
Forrest was a southwestern antique dealer who published a book titled The Thrill of the Chase. The book contained a poem that provided nine clues to the location of a chest containing two million dollars of gold and jewels. After a decade-long search, a medical student found it in Wyoming, five people died attempting to locate it.
A pamphlet written in 1885 includes three ciphers that allegedly show the location of 43 million dollars in buried treasure, located somewhere in the Carolinas.
On the Trail of the Golden Owl
A French treasure hunt book, also known as The Secret Notebooks, contains eleven riddles leading to a buried gold statuette.
A dozen buried treasure boxes in cities throughout the United States and Canada. Three out of the twelve have been located, including one in Boston.
Here are TWO treasure hunts ...
The search for the stolen Isabella Stewart Gardner art qualifies as the largest treasure hunt in world history ...
1. Clues to Locations (see PDF link here)
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2. New Albion
At first, the great swamp roared with progress and knew no limits but as patents slowed and "Tiponittin" fell to ruin, a shrouded, ancient monument a niblick away from the maidenhair took notice. Per an agreement reached by dead captains on a club meadow long ago, it began to stir.
A mad dog was silenced but not quickly enough. It is said that his evil escaped upon the wings of a fly. Even with his worldly flesh gone his dark spirit hovered and death and misery followed.
As XXLCV raised its offspring in its image, wealth and authority were acquired through corruption, disguised as philanthropy.
All the while merchants and makers took their leave from the once thriving township.
Still, for the cunning, there was profit to be found, even in a city's decline. Wagers were placed and lost, positions of importance were purchased, scores were detained but those deepest within the amoral chasm escaped the magistrate's gavel. Their names were whispered by some, and hidden by others.
Years passed, despairing, a lady in white beseeched the long-dead innovators for help. She sought to reclaim the missing treasures purloined by a desperate stonecutter born near them. Hearing her heartfelt plea the relics in the hidden monument began to stir.
Two Machiavellian elders presumed, in error, that their corrupt descendants would elude justice as they had. The long-suffering prison walls have waited for the long-hidden names to be brought to them.
But ... the institutions will settle for the scions. At last, the Captains of Industry watch, as a strong hand made with the help of stone and lime crumbles. Perhaps, at last, the truth shall surface, the Dead Captains will be appeased and ... New Albion will thrive again.