Six Questions – Jon Collins-Black!
Ever since Forrest Fenn’s treasure chest was found in the Rocky Mountains searchers have been waiting for another big treasure hunt! On November 12, 2024, the book There’s Treasure Inside (available on Amazon) is being shipped out! The wait is over – Thanks to Jon Collins-Black!
Clues to find five different treasure boxes hidden across the United States, are within the book There’s Treasure Inside by Jon Collins-Black. The hunt for millions is sure to prove an adventure! I hope you join the fun. Over the last few months, we’ve learned quite a bit about the hunt, via interviews, the hunt’s There’s Treasure Inside website, and many of TTI’s(There’s Treasure Inside) official social channels: Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and even Tiktok. Lots of released details and information is posted on the MW Facts Page – the page continually gets updated as more becomes known.
Let’s see if we can learn more! (I must mention, Jon had asked me to send 10-15 questions or so, of which the Q’s below are the ones he chose to answer)
Six Questions Jon Collins-Black:
- 1Q) First let me say thank you, Jon, for participating in these six questions. It will be great to learn some of your thoughts on the hunt, and about the book. To begin, please share what inspired you to create the treasure hunt, how someone can get involved, and how long you think the hunts might last – for instance, of the five hunts, are each the same difficulty or do you think some might last years while others will be found within a year?
Aha. I see what you did here. Your first question is four different inquiries all in one! 🙂
But first, thank you for reaching out to me, Jenny! I appreciate your interest in my book. And it’s a pleasure to be a part of your question series.
I penned the “Introduction” section of my book to address your “what inspired me” question. For a full answer, please begin there.
The abbreviated answer to that question is that my experiences on the other side of a treasure hunt — as a treasure hunter — inspired me to create this adventure. This treasure hunt is a project born from joy. Everything about putting this project together has brought me great happiness, and the one thing I seek through my book is to be able to share joy with others.
As for “getting involved,” all one needs to do is read my book. All the clues needed to locate the treasures I’ve hidden are inside the book.
As to how long the hunt(s) will last, that is a mystery, indeed! I did not want to make them super easy and have them found too quickly. I hoped there would be time for many people to have an opportunity to participate. I attempted to make the four similar sized boxes a little easier to find than the largest box, although there are a lot more clues that point to the largest box’s location. Soon we all find out together how long these hunts play out.
- 2Q) One of the first questions that cross searchers’ minds is ‘Is it real?’ – especially when there is a hunt of such magnitude being presented. You answer this in FAQ’s on your website, saying “100%’ – everything you see hear is real”. However, can you share more of your background and goals for the hunt – like what do you attribute to your success in order to have the ability to host such a hunt, and do you hope to gain some return of monies invested in this project via book sales or other avenues?
I would have to sell an enormous amount of books to recoup the money that this treasure and book cost me. This is a labor of love and one that I never expected to make money from. The thought of profit never crossed my mind.
Still, one of my goals is large participation. More books being sold most likely translates into more people getting involved. So if one day enough books were sold that I was financially in the black, I’d likely give any extra money to charity. Making a profit from a treasure hunt seems counterintuitive and not in the spirit from which this project was born.
As for my background, in some ways I feel like I have lived many lives in one. After university, I started off in the self-help field. Then a short stint in acting brought me to California, after which I spent quite a bit of time in the music industry. Along the way, I’ve always been an entrepreneur. I’ve owned several businesses, some successful, others not. And I’ve made different investments, again with hits and misses. Over time, I had enough hits that those afforded me a chance to do something quite special with this treasure adventure.
Although my book is not a memoir, I do provide some detail about myself within it. Every item I chose for this treasure had significant personal meaning, and my interests, passions, and personality are no doubt reflected in each of these treasures. I wanted this book to feel personal and intimate, and I felt it was important for me to be very sincere and transparent with the reader.
- 3Q) Congrats on the release of your children’s book ‘Our Unbreakable Thread’! It’s a heartwarming story, displaying a love for family, which is so important today. Are you working on other children’s books to publish? Plus, please share the different enjoyments or challenges you had writing Our Unbreakable Thread to There’s Treasure Inside? Which was easier to write?
Thank you. I am glad you enjoyed it!
I’ve been a writer for most of my life in one capacity or another. I began with poetry and had some works published in college. I’ve written dozens and dozens of songs. I have written scripts, speeches, website copy, and business articles. So much of the work I’ve done has involved writing in some capacity.
I was always interested in writing a children’s book. I figured it might happen once I had children of my own, and that’s exactly how it played out. My wife and I began writing children’s book manuscripts while she was pregnant with our first child. We wrote a couple dozen manuscripts. A few months after our son was born, I was inspired to write a book to our newborn about the connection I felt between us. That was the impetus behind Our Unbreakable Thread. It was one of the quickest manuscripts I’ve ever written, likely because the feeling of the message was so visceral in that moment.
A few years later, I co-founded the children’s book publisher Marble Press. Susan Szecsi, my business partner at Marble, had already read the text for Our Unbreakable Thread and fallen in love with it. She submitted it anonymously to our acquiring editor Micheal Green, who decided Marble should publish it.
As the timing turned out, both Our Unbreakable Thread and There’s Treasure Inside come out this year. For this reason, I thought it would be fun to put an extra clue or two in Our Unbreakable Thread to assist in finding the largest treasure box I have hidden.
There’s Treasure Inside was immensely more challenging to write. But both books hold special places in my heart.
- 4Q) The treasures to be found in the hunt are incredible. Were there any treasures you acquired for the hunt that you instead fell in love with and kept? What would you say are some of your personal favorite items in the treasure boxes, and why? In seeking the different treasures out, what were you looking for in an item? What did you enjoy most about that quest?
Four more questions in one! Sneaky.
Every object I acquired for this treasure has special meaning to me. I felt strongly that this should be the case, so that I might convey parts of myself to someone who reads my book or engages with this adventure. Therefore, it’s difficult for me to pick favorites. It is my wish that different items will appeal to different personalities, interests, and ages. From the response I have gotten so far, it seems that is exactly what is happening.
There were definitely items, when held in my hands, that were more magical than I had imagined they would be. And once I learned more about the stories of each object, the majesty and wonder of these pieces grew even more.
I suppose when I began to put my initial wish list together for the treasure, my mind’s eye first peered back to the artwork found on the cover of the 1983 Dungeon’s & Dragons Basic set, with its large red dragon protecting a massive treasure trove. That image certainly was an impetus for the gold coins, precious jewels, and gold chalice. But from there, my list ever-expanded and really took on a life of its own. The diversity and breadth of objects in the treasure is one of the things I am most proud of.
- 5Q) Like the first ever armchair treasure hunt, Masquerade published in 1979 by Kit Williams, clues are to be discovered within your book that are to take a person to the general location of which they must then physically find the treasure once on location. Are the hidden treasure boxes filled with the actual treasures or is a proxy item used to then claim the treasures? Also, have you put in place methods to know whether or not a treasure box has been located and/or moved?
There are no proxies. Each box is hidden and will be found filled with treasure.
I may not ultimately know when a box has been located, but I have left incentives for the finders to let me know. It is my desire that I will be able to let searchers know once each box is discovered.
- 6Q) Safety is of utmost importance. Are the treasure boxes accessible year round 24/7 to discover? Will weather have any effect on the locations? Will weather affect the boxes – are they waterproof?
I agree, Jenny. Safety is important.
I have an entire section of my book dedicated entirely to this topic. There, I go into detail about the safety guidelines to follow and the best practices when hunting for the treasure boxes I have hidden. I really hope that all your readers will read that section closely and follow what I say to a word.
I intentionally hid the boxes so that they are not in dangerous places to arrive at or access. I wanted this treasure hunt to be fun, safe, and achievable for any healthy and able body.
This treasure hunt is meant to bring you out in nature to enjoy your surroundings, not to succumb to them. This should be an exciting adventure. I have hidden all the treasure boxes with safety in mind.
The boxes themselves are works of art that took nearly a year and a half to make. I would like you to find them intact and in excellent condition. I spent a lot of time figuring out how this might be possible. Of course, with mother nature, there are no guarantees. But that is my wish.
I recently posted a video online where I discuss safety in more detail, including to those people I would advise not searching for the treasures I’ve hidden.
I’ll end our questions here by taking an opportunity to add one caveat. Getting people out in nature was my goal, so making sure the solves included some searching was always my plan. Months ago, one of your readers emailed asking if this was an armchair hunt and he was told no. However, once the book was printed, I sat down again to review all the clues in it. I realized that it is possible to narrow down a pretty exact location of the largest box (and probably one or more of the other boxes) from the comfort of your armchair. So, in theory, if one has a friend who could search for them, they could participate even if they are physically unable to search themselves.