Question! What was your first Treasure Hunt?

[Jenny]

We are wondering...... How did you get started in Armchair Treasure Hunting? What was your first treasure hunt or what got you started?


Please share!

[Jenny]

My first hunt was A Treasure’s Trove in 2004. My sister had gotten me the book and told me there were 12 treasure tokens hidden across the states valued at around a million dollars. If you were able to solve the clues inside the book and find the hidden token, you could claim it’s prize. Sounded awesome!

Below are my four kids in 2005 at the Grasshopper Tree for a token in A Treasure’s Trove (we were 2 hours too late- the token was found just previously, but we had a blast and created memories...and went on to find other treasures!)

[susb8383]

My very first treasure hunt was at a summer daycare when I was in elementary school. All summer long we bore the heat outdoors playing board games, hop scotch, and jump rope, in anticipation of the big treasure hunt at the end of the summer. We were split into two teams. Each team was given a piece of paper with the first clue on it, which would lead to a location somewhere on the property where the next clue was hidden, etc. My brother and I were always on separate teams, and in all the years I went to that daycare, I was never on the winning team.

But that started my love of treasure hunts, My brother and I would create our own hunts around the house for each other. A typical clue of a 10-year old was “- - - - - as a feather” with the next clue hidden in the flashlight battery compartment. The final prize was usually candy.

Then in high school a friend showed me Masquerade and I was hooked.

[GeneticBlend]

I was at home, sick in bed, reading "People Magazine". There was an article about a treasure hunt called, "A Treasure's Trove". I put on my sad face and begged my husband to go to the Barnes and Noble to buy me the book so I would have something to look at while I was sick. He returned with the book and I have been doing treasure hunts ever since.

[thedawailey]

I started with Masquerade. I don't remember where I heard about it. That was long before the internet or sites like Mysterious Writings. My friend and I spent hours, days, months obsessed with the book. We stayed up to all hours of the night with encyclopedias opened up and scattered all over the floor of my living room. Also notebooks and lots of notes scribbled on pieces of paper. We never came close to solving it, but we had a lot of fun!

I still have my original book. It has held up much better than the more recent Fandango!

[hiddentreasures]

I had always been obsessed with Kit Williams after discovering him in art lessons and from that had heard of Masquerade and thought it was a great idea but it wasn't until I had heard about the Forrest Fenn treasure I began to get interested in the hunts. Although I knew I would never get to the US to hunt it didn't stop me from hunting online and I like most of you have my solve!
Since then I have worked on the Golden owl in France and the Hidden Sun, and having plenty of time on my hands this year has inspired me to create my own hunt!

[Namtabeht]

For me the first one was 'The Merlin Mystery' by Jonathan Gunson & Marten Coombe (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merlin_Mystery). Here you searched for the instructions to a magic ritual/spell instead of a location. I spent many hours with this book, but never came close to a solution. The end date came and went and that was that.

It wasn't until years later that I had my second run-in with the genre when I happened upon 'The Great Global Treasure Hunt on Google Earth' by Tim Dedopulos. It even got my wife hooked and we spent many evenings solving the clues.

After that hunt ended, I started wondering if there might be/have been other suchlike books. I started doing some research and soon found out about 'Masquerade', 'The Secret', 'Conundrum' and 'Sur La Trace De La Chouette D'or'. Since then I've found out about a lot more hunts, but even with the internet, it's often hard to find all the relevant information.

One of the challenges I find is getting involved in a new hunt from the start. Often hunts are well underway before I learn of them. Luckily Mysteriouswritings.com is a help in this.

[Chouetteur]

I'm a young hunter that started when I read the book Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman. In the story, the book Masquerade was mentioned, and I research it just for fun because it sounded interesting. That was when I got really hooked into armchair treasure hunting and its mysterious puzzles, and I started researching more and more hunts every day. At first I only looked at active hunts, like The Secret and The Thrill of the Chase, but then I looked for older hunts that might teach me more: The Last Fairy, Le Tresor d'Orval, MAZE, The Hidden Sun, the Chouette d'Or... I didn't care where it came from as long as the hunt had a good story! That's how I got started in this grand hobby, and I hope I learn more!

[Lj67]

Cadbury’s Conundrum in the UK. Every Night we’d sit around the table, discussing the clues and then drive off somewhere each Sunday. Destinations were typically cold, damp and dark (England for ten months each year). It was great family fun though! We were about 500 ft from the location of one egg, next to an old cross in Ribchester. The whole experience is something I’ll never forget...

[inatimate1]

I remember when I was about 11 or 12, we had a school trip to the Lake District for a few days. We got to take part in loads of activities up there, but the one that stuck with me the most was doing a scavenger hunt. I absolutely loved the whole thing and it still sticks with me to this day.

Then when I was around 17 I saw one of my school friends holding a piece of paper running around the town I live in with a couple of other people. I went over to speak to him and found out a group he was a member of had put together a little 'treasure hunt' where they were set seemingly random questions that tied in to different landmarks around the town. Sadly I couldn't get properly involved but I loved helping them on a couple of things.

The first one I actually got involved with was the Perplex City hunt. That whole concept was completely fascinating, I would spend hours at night trying to decipher clues to find this mystery location. It was so captivating scouring through things and working things out. I loved that each card was a puzzle in itself that involved different solving skills.

When that was finally done I was a bit lost with what to do with my time, I waited and waited for a sequel. Then a couple of things happened that kept pushing the release back, eventually it never happened, probably due to Moshi Monsters being the more lucrative idea.

The next one that drew me in was 'Endgame' by 'James Frey'. That was around 7 years ago. Again I spent hours working on this but couldn't make great progress. That was released in stages but was eventually solved as well.

Sometime shortly after that I found this site, and the rest is history. I think it was the Oracle that led me here, and I still can't make head nor tail of it all this time later 😂

[Jenny]

Mar 1, 2021 4:32:44 GMT -5 inatimate1 said:

I remember when I was about 11 or 12, we had a school trip to the Lake District for a few days. We got to take part in loads of activities up there, but the one that stuck with me the most was doing a scavenger hunt. I absolutely loved the whole thing and it still sticks with me to this day.

Then when I was around 17 I saw one of my school friends holding a piece of paper running around the town I live in with a couple of other people. I went over to speak to him and found out a group he was a member of had put together a little 'treasure hunt' where they were set seemingly random questions that tied in to different landmarks around the town. Sadly I couldn't get properly involved but I loved helping them on a couple of things.

The first one I actually got involved with was the Perplex City hunt. That whole concept was completely fascinating, I would spend hours at night trying to decipher clues to find this mystery location. It was so captivating scouring through things and working things out. I loved that each card was a puzzle in itself that involved different solving skills.

When that was finally done I was a bit lost with what to do with my time, I waited and waited for a sequel. Then a couple of things happened that kept pushing the release back, eventually it never happened, probably due to Moshi Monsters being the more lucrative idea.

The next one that drew me in was 'Endgame' by 'James Frey'. That was around 7 years ago. Again I spent hours working on this but couldn't make great progress. That was released in stages but was eventually solved as well.

Sometime shortly after that I found this site, and the rest is history. I think it was the Oracle that led me here, and I still can't make head nor tail of it all this time later 😂

Kurt Konecny wrote about Perplex City for MW...... it was a hunt I hadn't followed closely at the time (I must have been working on something else).... but when Kurt wrote about it I was amazed at what I missed! It sounded awesome!

mysteriouswritings.com/the-armchair-treasure-hunt-of-perplex-city-by-kurt-konecny/

[JLyon1515]

Hi all, long time hunter, but first time posting here.

Though I had heard of past hunts, in particular Masquerade and the VHS-based Treasure: In Search of the Golden Horse, the first hunt that I actually participated in was called Captain Kidd and the Missing Crown (1991). It's a small hunt that I don't hear talked about much, but it was the first hunt I actually physically went looking for. The author, Jack Hashian, created a previous hunt called The Lost Treasure of Rip Van Winkle (1983, found spring of 1990). Both hunts were created to try to increase tourism to the Catskill, NY area, and it was nice to have a narrowed location to be looking in.

I didn't get the hunt until my senior year of high school (1995/96), and would be traveling from northern Vermont to college in Rochester, NY, so I'd be driving quite close to Catskill, NY. This was a time before Google Maps, so it wasn't until being physically in the town that a hunter would realize that the prominent house right on the center of the hunt's map was actually a little ice cream selling shack in the middle of the park. Oh the excitement when something on a hand-drawn map indisputably matches something in the real world!

Though a solution was never determined, the treasure WAS found in December of 2008, by a local family who decided to feverishly search the entire area as a tribute activity for a family member who had recently passed away. The proxy doubloon was found in the water just north of the park affixed to a rock in a part of the Hudson River that peeks out of the water during low tide. The actual treasure was a many-jeweled, recreated crown of King Henry V worth $10,000.

I've thought about doing a little summary video of the hunt at some point... maybe someday!

[Jenny]

Awesome! And Welcome!

I remember Captain Kidd...... !