In 2010, Santa Fe, New Mexico art dealer Forrest Fenn published the Thrill of the Chase: A Memoir. This collection of short stories about his 80-year life included the description of a treasure chest he had hidden “in the mountains “somewhere north of Santa Fe.” The stories contained hints to the treasure’s location and a 24-line poem served as a “map” filled with the clues necessary to find the chest.
Over the course of the next decade, it is estimated that 350,000 people ventured into the Rocky Mountains in search of the box filled with gold coins, gold nuggets, gemstones, and jewelry. Despite Fenn’s assurance that the treasure could be found without any dangerous activity, five searchers died. In 2020, Fenn reported that the chest had been found but neither the identity of the finder nor the location of the hidden box was revealed. In September of 2020, Fenn died. Many people cried foul. Some claimed the entire thing was a hoax and that there was no treasure. Others believed Fenn had gathered the treasure himself so that the thing would be done by the time he died. Many other theories were put forth, which is no surprise if you recall the summer and fall of 2020. The air was ripe for this sort of thing.
In December of 2020, a 32 year-old medical student, Jack Stuef, claimed that he was the one who had found Fenn’s treasure and his initial desire for anonymity was undone by a pending lawsuit. An auction for the box’s contents netted $1.3 million. However, for those hundreds of thousands of searchers who had labored over Fenn’s clues and perceived clues, those who had tramped through the Rocky Mountains from New Mexico to Montana, the decade-long hiding spot of Fenn’s treasure was never revealed.*
From 2016-2020, one of those searching arduously for the Fenn treasure chest was Jon Collins-Black. While he did not find Fenn’s box, he did strike it rich by making tens of millions of dollars investing in crypto currency. Rather than belabor the controversies surrounding Fenn’s treasure, Collins-Black reveled in the hunt; teasing through clues and spending a great deal of time in the Rocky Mountains. Indeed, he describes his first year searching as a “full-time” endeavor. He cut back later in order to attend to a young growing family.
Inspired by the joy he found searching for Fenn’s treasure and having a bit of spare coin to share, Collins-Black has hidden five treasure boxes across the United States holding over $2 million of fascinating items (I originally wrote, “claims to have hidden five treasure boxes”).
Following Fenn’s example, Collins-Black recently published a coffee-table style book, There’s Treasure Inside (2024). Within are all the clues necessary to find the five beautiful boxes, each of which is a work of art meticulously hand-crafted by blacksmith artisan Seth Gould. While looking for boxes suitable for the grandness of Collins-Black’s scheme, he discovered a Seth Gould box, named “Coffer”, in the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Working with Collins-Black’s vision, Seth Gould spent the better part of a year meticulously crafting the five boxes. You can see them being made here at Gould’s Instagram, @sethgould.
Collins-Black shares his experience with Gould. “When he sent me a video of this process [of crafting the boxes],” Collins-Black writes, “I joked with him that his attention to detail might drive a lesser person to madness. Seth responded by saying that such detailed work put him into a meditative state. The finer points of detail helped him relax and focus, and here he found a true sense of calm and joy.”
For me, I entered this riddled territory with a healthy degree of skepticism. As Collins-Black revealed his stories, however, including the history and significance of many of these objects, I have now no doubt whatsoever that the boxes have been hidden as he claims. If you question my certainty, I suggest that you watch this interview in which Collins-Black explains his motivations.**
His book sets off the same vibe as the interview; one of sincerity, wonder, kindness, and joy. I’ve heard it said that once people acquire a basic level of comfort in their lives, the amassing of great wealth does not correspond to increased well-being and happiness. With this in mind, and as Collins-Black tells us through his stories, the true treasures of life cannot be found in a box. They exist within each of us to live meaningful and joyful lives.
In this sense, the search itself becomes the treasure.
“The entire project has taken me the better part of the last five years,” Collins-Black writes. “And all of it has been one continuous act of joy. Acquiring each item in this treasure, investigating the histories surrounding these pieces, designing the treasure boxes, creating the clues, deciding on the secret spots, hiding the treasure boxes, writing this book: every aspect has been one wildly fun and wholly fulfilling, joyous adventure.. It’s made me feel alive.”
Many of the stashed objects have been designed by artists whose stories are told in the book. A bracelet crafted by Charles Loloma— a famed twentieth century Native American artist—is made of ironwood, turquoise, lapis lazuli, coral, and gold, and is estimated to be worth over $27,000. This is my favorite piece among dozens of others.
In one of the five chests is a gold nugget weighing over twenty-one ounces found during the California Gold Rush of 1849. An Olympic gold medal from the 1960 games in Rome is up for grabs, too. You might also find a jelly glass owned by George Washington, a gold pendant designed by Pablo Picasso, or a diamond and sapphire brooch that once belonged to Jackie Kennedy Onassis.
For the literary-minded, and in the spirit of Collins-Black’s desire to share joy, one box holds two original handwritten pages of Henry David Thoreau’s journal. Collins-Black shares Thoreau’s love of the natural world as a way of aligning one’s perspective with the things that really matter.
To attract other searchers, one box contains a Michael Jordan rookie card with a PSA rating of 9, which makes it worth tens of thousands of dollars. Another contains a Pokemon card in mint condition which may be worth about the same, if not more. The most valuable Pokemon card is said to be worth one million dollars.***
Also hidden are a Greek wreath of solid gold olive leaves fashioned over 2000 years ago, a fully loaded Casascius physical Bitcoin containing the private keys to one digital Bitcoin worth over 90,000 dollars, a 9.65-carat diamond in its natural state in “almost perfect octahedral form,” a gold bar recovered from a shipwreck from 1752 discovered in 1993, and so much more.
If you get the urge to set out, Collins-Black assures us that almost everyone is capable of finding the boxes. “One of my biggest concerns while designing this project,” he writes, “was the potential our treasure might have to tempt a person towards irrational action.”
He goes to great lengths to assure treasure hunters that they would not be asked to put themselves in harm’s way. “I placed all our boxes in safe locations,” he writes. “No box is hidden under any body of water. You do not need to get into a raft, or canoe, or water vessel of any kind…and you will not need to scale a cliff or rock face to find a box.” All boxes are hidden on public land, so there is no need to trespass. “My goal,” he writes, “is to keep you in good spirits, fine health, and far away from misfortune of any kind.”
“I spread out their final resting spots,” he encourages, “in hopes that at least one of our boxes would lie in close proximity to you.” After studying There’s Treasure Inside —scribbling away with my medium blue BIC pen as I identified potential clues—and watching a few interviews of the author, I have already determined, I hope, the general location of one of the boxes. As promised, it is indeed very near me. I don’t suppose I’ll actually find it but, as Collins-Black hoped for, I’ve already experienced a sense of joy while planning a trip to a beautiful spot in the mountains.
I can’t hold any treasure in my hands quite yet… but it sure is fun to ponder.
*CNN article identifying Fenn treasure box finder
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/forrest-fenn-treasure-found-identity-revealed-trnd/index.html
**Interview of Jon Collins-Black
***My buddy JMo is an avid collector of sports cards and other memorabilia and he financed his effort by selling the Pokemon cards he had collected as a kid. Check out this TNT Storyland feature, where I share his amazing story—Wednesdays with JMo (Part 1 of 7)
