A businessman hid five chests full of loot and $2 million worth of valuablesn the United States and left a book full of clues to help treasure hunters find them.
Jon Collins-Black – who made a fortune in Bitcoin investments – has spent the last few years amassing a cache of valuables, from gold coins salvaged from shipwrecks to rare Pokémon cards, all with the intention of hiding them in secret locations for treasure hunters to unearth
Collins-Black paired the trip with a clue book, There’s Treasure Inside, which is filled with puzzles and maps and all the clues needed to discover the location of the treasure chests. “You don’t have to be a genius to solve the puzzles. There is no great encryption. If you have curiosity, imagination and a willingness to try something new, you can find the treasures I have hidden,” said Collins-Black.
The items hidden in the chests were designed to appeal to a wide range of audiences, with items such as sports trading cards – such as the card from Michael Jordan’s first year in the NBA in 1986 – as well as gold and historical artifacts.
Jackie Kennedy’s prized brooch
Some items include a diamond and sapphire brooch belonging to Jackie Onassis, a golden Greek laurel of the fourth century BC, a coin designed and struck by Pablo Picasso and a rare lunar rock specimen.
Among the treasures is also a single Bitcoin –which is currently worth almost $100,000 and it might well rise in price until its chest is found. None of the chests are in a dangerous location, Collins-Black points out, and all are out in the open somewhere – not buried.
Each is also within 3 miles of a public road, he said, and none are on private property. “I created this treasure hunt because I live for adventure”Collins-Black said of the project, which he devised during the lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I hope to spark that same sense of wonder and curiosity in everyone on this journey,” he added, according to WKRC. Collins-Black is not the first eccentric millionaire to hide a chest full of treasure and leave behind a puzzle of clues.
Around 2010, New Mexico art dealer Forrest Fenn hid a chest of gold and jewelry said to be worth about $2 million somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, and released a poem filled with clues to its location.
For a decade it remained untouched and at least five people died searching for it – until Fenn suddenly announced it had been found in June 2020. But Fenn never revealed the lucky man’s name, and his death months later left many wondering if the treasure it had finally been found.
