Although The Inheritance – Part 2 was an Armchair Treasure hunt released previously in 1990, it is being published here again for those wanting to take up its heady challenge.
The prize for the hunt has already been claimed ($24,000), but as the preface of The Inheritance – Part 2 states (in regard to another hunt), “the prize in that book became secondary to the challenge of solving the puzzle for many people.” And so is just the case for The Inheritance – Part 2 armchair treasure hunt. The enjoyment and pleasure found in the test of mind and dare of search are the treasures to appreciate when accepting Don Adam’s dare of ‘Can you solve my puzzle?’
I am so grateful Don has given us this opportunity. It’s an awesome and well-constructed hunt, and although I don’t know the solution myself yet, I will enjoy working on it as my time allows. Having these puzzles and games to exercise the brain is something to truly appreciate and value as treasure. Plus, it will be great to share ideas with others for the solving in the MW Forum’s section for The Inheritance – Part 2.
Below is Don’s story and introduction to the armchair treasure hunt: The Inheritance – Part 2. Please notice the link for a free scanned PDF copy of treasure hunt book at the end.
~ The Inheritance – Part 2 by Don Adams
Around 1979, a fellow school teacher of mine made a presentation to a small study group of teachers I was in about a book named “Masquerade” by Kit Williams. The art in the book was something to behold and even more interesting was that there was also a treasure hunt associated with the story. That was my first introduction to armchair treasure hunting. And then in 1984 another book was brought to my attention – “Treasure: In Search of the Golden Horse”. I dove into this book with all of the energy I could muster and actually made two trips to locations where I thought it might be located.
Of course, as everyone knows, back in the 1980’s the Internet was just coming of age. There were no mass communication sites like Facebook or research sites about anything you ever wanted to know. At this time there were bulletin boards and the start of Email. Most people didn’t have an Internet connection and the ones that did all had telephone modems. There were no detailed graphic images and Netscape was just coming out. Everyone was pretty much on their own unless they had a personal group working together.
Unfortunately, one of the things both of these books had in common was that they both had controversial endings to their treasure hunts. As I read about the ending of “Treasure” and that no solution was going to be given I got to thinking about the possibility of writing a book like these and making sure there was no controversial ending. So, with that, the seeds were planted that led to the publishing of “The Inheritance – Part 2”.
Part 2? The concept I had in mind was that the story would be of four different searches (books) conducted by two brothers to “recover” the inheritance left to them by their father. So after a year of thinking, organizing, and writing I finally released this book in 1990. I used an anagram of my real name as the author which just happened to contain the Spanish word for a cottonwood tree. At the time I lived on a street named Cottonwood. It was things like this that made it so much fun to create the book and its puzzle.
The book was solved a little over two years after it was released and the treasure I buried was recovered. I will not give Jenny the solution now so you (and she!) can take a shot at solving it if you wish. Sometime in the future, when Jenny thinks the time is right, I will send it to her and she can make it public. There were a couple of typos in the book (misspelled words) that were not meant to be clues. There was also a misspelled word or two in the solutions to a couple of the cyphers but you will have no trouble in figuring out what the words should have been.
Everything is straight forward and some things are easy to figure out and others, though solved, will give you even more to think about. I released two sets of additional clues after one and two years had passed. Those clues will be released to you after you have had a chance to work on the puzzle a while to see how you can do without them.
I hope you have as much fun with this book as I did in creating it. Give it a shot. With what we have available on the Internet today many of the puzzles become much easier to solve. But be warned, solving the individual puzzles does not necessarily give you the answer you seek!
But remember, the treasure has already been recovered and there is no prize being offered here other than some interesting puzzles to solve and an unexpected solution based on a general theme.
(A section may be created on the MW Site to list and recognize those who have taken up the challenge and solved the hunt correctly: Email Treasure@mysteriouswritings.com with solution to be added)
FREE PDF DOWNLOAD: THE INHERITANCE – PART 2
Best of luck to all that you seek! Treasure the Adventure!