Get ready for more adventures!  On November 27, The Hatter’s Hat armchair treasure hunt by David Jacobsen is set to be released.  Within a book, available on Amazon and the hunt’s website, are clues leading to a treasure hidden somewhere in the USA.

The treasure is valued at over $10,000, and possibly up to $20,000.  It is filled with diamonds, rubies, sapphires, silver, gold, coins, and other unique items.  Sounds like quite the wonderland of fun!

Let’s learn more about this incredible hunt from the creator!

Six Questions with David:

  • 1Q) How exciting to hear of your upcoming treasure hunt! Thanks so much for letting MW know of it!  Can you share what inspired you to create the hunt, and had you worked on any other hunts previously?

I was inspired by some of the great treasure hunt books – The Thrill of the Chase, Masquerade, The Secret, and many others. I also was inspired by books, movies, and stories about imaginary epic treasure hunts, including, for example: Tom Sawyer, The Goonies, Treasure Island, The Pirates of the Caribbean, The Hobbit, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and more. I wanted to create a real world epic hero quest, similar to the stories that had captured my imagination as a child – a hero quest that anyone could participate in. I also wanted to encourage people to read my book, The Hatter’s Hat, prequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I’m hoping the treasure hunt will help people to discover the wonderful world that Lewis Carroll created, which I have sought to breathe new life into with a work of my own.

I’ve never worked on any other treasure hunts before. This is my first.

  • 2Q) How can a person get involved?  What do they need to do? What advice can you give a new person just getting started in armchair treasure hunting, and about working on your hunt?

To get involved, you first need to pick up a copy of my book, The Hatter’s Hat – Lost Tales of Wonderland, prequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It’s available on the hunt’s official website wonderlandtreasure.com as well as Amazon.com. All the information you need to claim the treasure are in the book.

I would advise new searchers getting started in armchair treasure hunting to approach things with an open mind. Fresh ideas can lead to winning solves. For The Hatter’s Hat treasure hunt specifically, I would recommend that you read my book, maybe even more than once. The first time you read it, I would not try to look for any clues. Instead, I would recommend reading the book as though you were reading any other book, taking in the story and characters, and enjoying the books first adventure – the protagonist’s adventure. Then go back and read the book again a second time, looking for anything that stands out. There is one very important clue to help get you started down a path. You’ll know it when you find it. When you discover that important clue, things will begin opening up for you, and you can begin the book’s second adventure – searching for the chest.

  • 3Q) Can you share how the clues, the finding of the Key, and claiming the treasure works? Is the entire treasure hidden, or is only a proxy item hidden then used to claim a treasure?  Is the treasure buried?

If you can find the clues in the book and decipher their significance and meaning, they will ultimately provide you a set of directions, like a map, that will lead you to a very specific location in the United States where a small treasure chest is hidden. The small treasure chest contains a golden key and a hundred dollar bill with a secret message. If you can find the golden key and tell me what’s written on the hundred dollar bill, I’ll give you the larger treasure chest, which contains the true treasure: gold, silver, wonderful diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and more. It’s a beautiful sight.

The golden key is just a proxy item. I didn’t want to just leave the true treasure out in the wilderness because I didn’t want searchers to have to deal with any property right battles in court, and I didn’t want people wondering whether or not the treasure was still out there. This way everyone will know when the hunt is over and there will be no doubts as to the true treasure’s legitimate claimant. The first person to find the golden key and prove it by telling me the secret message will claim the true treasure. There are instructions in the back of my book for how you can let me know if you think you’ve fount it. If you can find the golden key, you can have the treasure.

  • 4Q) Will the clues lead to an exact location? Is this location in the Rocky Mountains? East Coast? Or can you only say ‘somewhere in the 48 continental states?’

Yes, that’s right Jenny – the clues all point to a very precise location. I’m not going to tell you exactly where it is – that would spoil the fun. But it’s somewhere in the 48 continental states, and it’s somewhere out in nature. Also, in the interests of safety, I should mention that the golden key isn’t hidden on private property and it isn’t located anywhere dangerous, so please don’t do anything risky when looking for the chest.

  • 5Q) On a scale for 1 to 10, with ten being the most difficult, how would you rate the difficulty of your hunt? How would you describe it? Lots of codes and ciphers, wordplay, riddles, puzzles, or mixture of methods?

A scale from 1 to 10 has very little meaning if it’s rated according to my own subjective thoughts. My idea of difficult may be different than the next person’s. But I will say this: the beauty of The Wonderland Treasure Hunt is that you will know the clues when you discover them. Unlike the Fenn treasure hunt, for example, where you could have a theory for “where warm waters halt” with no way of determining whether your theory was any better than the next, I tried to write the clues such that they could be validated. Validation will come in different forms for each clue, but there is a way to check your work, so to speak, for most if not all of the clues, which will give searchers peace of mind and validation along their journey, hopefully making the adventure more rewarding and enjoyable.

  • 6Q) How long do you feel the hunt will last?  Do you plan on giving out clues if no one can find the treasure after a while or is all in the book, and it is up to searchers to figure it out from the release?  

I really have no idea how long the hunt will last. There are a lot of very smart searchers out there, I’ve noticed. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone figures it all out very quickly; but I also wouldn’t be surprised if it took a bit of time. I don’t think it’s going to be solved in a day, but I also don’t think it will take ten years.

I may give hints and clues from time to time, depending on how the search is going. If any clues or hints are given, I will make sure to publish them on the website: wonderlandtreasure.com.

I hope that helps.