On February 14, 2019, John Michaels and Kit Palencar released the armchair treasure hunt, Tribute: Hunt for the 13th Casque. For the last few months, searchers have been taken on an awesome adventure looking for this buried treasure. It should be remembered that the prize for this hunt is not only a 3 carat Pink Tourmaline with other gemstones, worth over $2,000 dollars, it is also the discovery of an ORIGINAL casque from The Secret. An absolute ‘Priceless’ treasure in itself! What a gift John and Kit have given us to search for!
The following concludes the In Search for The Secret Casque Series. We took a look at each of the 12 images and now we take a look at the 13th! Rich Blandford is an active and extremely knowledgeable searcher for the 13th Casque. He has visited the park the casque is believed buried in many times, and has taken multiple photos for other searchers. He’s an true team player! Be sure to catch him, and the many other searchers in Quest for the Casque in the Tribute: Hunt for the 13th Casque Facebook Group, or if not on Facebook, the MW Forum!.
Enjoy! And best of luck to all! (and stay tuned for another exciting series on The Secret coming soon!)
- 1Q) When did you first hear about The Secret? Had you searched for other Casques before the 13th?
I like so many others found out about The Secret after watching Expedition Unknown in January of 2018. After using Google Earth to play around with Forrest Fenn’s treasure and realizing how massive the search area was, I switched gears toward finding the remaining 10 casques. And as an artist myself, I was intrigued by the idea of using Artwork with cryptic clues like The Secret.
I did get a 1 hour window to search for the Charleston casque last summer after a vacation to Hillton Head. My wife and I drove up to Charleston to meet with one of my Q4T friends Macfos. Yes, I drove 3 hours out of our way and stayed an extra night in Charleston for a 1 hour BOTG experience. We had a good idea of where we thought the casque was buried but did not have a 2×2 digspot. We probed a few spots and I dug in two, which helped me bring a 6″x8″ piece of wood to the surface as well as a rock. When my probe hit that dead wood at about 2.5′ down, my heart starting racing. Disappointed but more determined to find my 2×2.
- 2Q) What makes you believe the 13th Casque is in Louisville? Would you mind sharing some of the highlights of your solution so far?
As many know, I was in Duluth, MN at the beginning but when the Louisville 6 (Caroline Ewen, Nicholas Kanoc, Gabrielle Sandbothe, Anthony Jaussaud, Lisa Tillman and William Harvey) showed up in a photo with the Heigold House Facade in Louisville I quickly and excitedly changed my focus.
Although I’ve been in Cincinnati for 29 years now, I’m originally from Louisville. Having an opportunity to be close enough to a city with the 13th Casque blew my mind. After getting to feel the excitement of actually walking around Charleston while on vacation and seeing everything I had seen on Google Earth, I couldn’t wait to check out the park I proposed to my wife in 32 years ago, and actually put my five senses to work.
The Heigold House is the city locator for Louisville. This is a historic landmark that was moved to where it is today. The reason it was moved is what is important to finding Cherokee Park and the clues it reveals. Beargrass Creek is a major Tributary of the Ohio River and its entrance into the Ohio used to cause all kinds of flooding problems. So to alleviate those problems, Beargrass Creek’s mouth was rebuilt where the historic Heigold House used to sit. As you move upsteam on Beargrass Creek the first park you come to is Cherokee, a Fredrick Law Olmstead park.
Other hard clues for Cherokee Park include artwork on the Tribute Verse page. Those are the Dragon face with his tongue out which is on the Christensen Fountain, the cattail which can be found on Hogan’s Fountain and the Bernheim Bridge emblems on the bottom of the page. I’ve been trying to figure out why there are five of them…there must be a reason.
- 3Q) What is the most unique thing you found while searching? What do you enjoy most about your search?
That’s an interesting question and I have two answers.
First, when I made it to Cherokee for my initial visit I went straight to the area I liked at Baringer Spring. When I went to put my probe in the ground I realized that there were at least a dozen holes in the ground. Someone had the same idea I did and got there before me. When I stuck my probe in the ground I realized there was too much aggregate against this stone wall. I could only get about 12″ deep. So eliminate that spot.
Second, when I was trying to eliminate a couple other spots I kind of liked but weren’t totally logical because of aggregate and heavy root-filled areas, I dug up a 1993 Quarter. Sure, a cash money treasure itself, but it was special to me because this was the year my first son was born.
Without a doubt what I enjoy most about these puzzles is meeting all the other searchers and seeing what they have come up with. The time spent going over clues with other searchers from all over world and deciphering their meanings brings me a lot of joy. And getting the opportunity to have BOTG has been eye-opening to say the least. So many possibilities come into play when you are on your perceived treasure grounds.
- 4Q) Of the clues given in the image and verse, which clues do you think searchers are most confident on, and which need more work?
The Heigold Facade without a doubt is a no brainer as a city locator for Louisville. The searchers are also confident concerning the Christensen Fountain with the dragon’s face and the ship’s shields, Hogan’s Fountain with the cattails and dog face bas relif, the Bernheim Bridge emblems and Big Rock.
I’d say the Butterfly and the tree branch in the Image need more work as far as deciphering their many clues.
The Butterfly appears to be composed of many maps within the park but this idea needs more work. The bottom right section of wing could be the Daniel Boone Entrance into Cherokee Park but the other wings are obscure and I can’t put my finger on an idea for those yet. Many searchers have bounced around some ideas but nothing agreed on as concrete.
The tree branch appears to be a Yellowwood tree. I say that because they are plentiful in the park and a common trait of a Yellowwood is that it starts to fork close to the ground and generally has curved forks. I see Kit representing this in his artwork where the top of the branch, with the curved fork runs off the top of the page and the other little branch with the point forms the shape of the letter “Y”.
- 5Q) What would you say is the major obstacle preventing a successful unearthing of the Casque? How would you say the Tribute Hunt is different than the original Secret Treasure Hunt?
This is a tribute to the original 12 and with that in mind the lines:
Learned now from methods past
One Casque
seem like a clue towards the methodology for the first casque found in Chicago. The keys there, once Chicago was revealed as the city, was the decorative fence silhouette and the “x marks the spot” circle hanging from the hoist. In hindsight these two Image 5 clues nailed down the dig spot.
My major obstacle has been to find what “x marks the spot” clues to use in Cherokee Park to align with a silhouetted Murdock Fountain we see in the 2nd Floor of the Image. The “X” itself is visible at the end of the Battle Axe in my opinion…. now just how to tie it together with Murdock makes my gears turn. And there are Murdock fountains throughout the park.
As for differences to the original 12 casques, I don’t see a lot of differences other than we know what Image goes with the Verse. I give John and Kit a lot of credit for keeping this Tribute so close to genius of Byron Preiss.
- 6Q) Do you have any advice for someone else looking for this treasure or is there something more you would like to add?
One thing I learned from Matthew Sparks and George Ward was to not be closed minded with your own dig spot. So once I get to where I like a certain spot, I keep an open mind and do everything I can to get me out of that spot.
One thing I like that John Michaels mentioned is the puzzle has stages something like this:
Locate the city
Find the correct park
Find the treasure grounds
Locate a Dig Spot
I feel once you have located what you believe to be the treasure grounds, look around that area and try to find clues that match your theory. If you keep coming up empty with matches to your criteria then see if you can find something else in the park to let you move on.
Only other thing I will add is for all searchers to bounce their ideas off other members or on the boards. Leigh Ann Yonaitis Miller, Karlene Materne and Durian Gris are pros at this. Don’t be shy. Open minds open doors.
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