Unsolved Armchair Treasure Hunt: The Money Hunt

Guest Post by

Kurt Konecny

After the success of Kit William’s “Masquerade”, the early to mid 1980’s saw an influx of other armchair treasure hunts. Some, like “Treasure: In Search Of The Golden Horse” are remembered to this day. Others, like “The Golden Apple Tale“ have a much smaller following, but are still being worked on to this day by a handful of people. And then there are those that seem to have completely fallen off the radar or are almost completely unknown. “The Money Hunt: Reward $1,000,000″ is one of those…forgotten in time, popping up occasionally on EBay, and still holding it’s secrets and unknown solution.

I actually owned “The Money Hunt” as a child. I remember putting it’s jigsaw puzzle together and paging through the book. I don’t know what happened to it after that, but for some reason, I have never forgotten it. Then, a few years ago, I found an unopened game for sale on EBay and bought it.

There’s something magical about being the first person to open something from so long ago…it’s almost like a buried treasure of it’s own. Once I put the puzzle together again, paged through the book, and the nostalgia finally faded, I decided to look online for the solution.
Only to find…nothing.

There are a few brief mentions of it on websites, and more people selling it, but there is almost nothing out there about a solution or adventures people went on or memories of the game.

If I remember correctly, that’s why I first contacted Jenny from Mysterious Writings (who also has a copy of it). Then, it came up a few times on the site recently, so we figured it was time to write an article about it.

“The Money Hunt: Reward $1,000,000” was released in 1985 by Trivia Games, Inc. Inside it’s box are a book, a jigsaw puzzle, and a large fold up map of North America, backed with a diagram that features a long arrow going through the various pages of the book, presumably showing the order that something needs to be done. The answer to the puzzle would be a specific location somewhere in North America. If you submitted the correct solution, you would win the $1,000,000.

The book features 30 pages of crude pencil drawings (much like those in “The Golden Apple Tale”) that include obvious puzzles like a crossword puzzle, cryptograms, and randomly scattered words, phrases, and numbers. It also had a registration card stamped with a registration number that you would submit when you bought the game, and three separate cards you could write the solution on and submit to the company.

The jigsaw puzzle, when put together, has the same picture on it as the cover of the book. It also includes this poem, which many people feel may be the key to the puzzle:

“A sad story was told, of one not very old.
Climb way up high, not quite to the sky.
With lives made to pay, find the place one did play.”

Along the border of the jigsaw puzzle, the following is written:

“Now that you have assembled the jigsaw puzzle, this poem will help you find the treasure. We recommend that you read the poem on the bottom of the puzzle several times. Now that we have started you on the right treasure hunt path, turn to page 11, the pool page, where people are playing cards….One of the cards is the queen of spades – What does that mean? Look for other clues on the same page as well as all other drawings. If all else fails, read the instructions.”

All that can be found online is that there was some sort of legal dispute between Trivia Games, Inc and a company called World Wide Treasure Adventures, Inc. The trademark for Trivia Games, Inc wasn’t renewed, and the company is believed to be long defunct. The accounting company of Touche Ross (now known as Deloitte & Touche) held the money and the solution, and would pay out the reward once the correct solution was submitted. Over the past years, people have tried writing to Deloitte & Touche for the solution or any information, but as far as anyone knows, no one ever received a reply.

The solution is unknown. By some accounts, the location needed for the solution was somewhere in New Brunswick, Canada. One confirmer I can see for this is the fact that the jigsaw puzzle mentions reading the instructions again, and on the instructions page, there is a random “N.B.” stuck into a sentence, possibly referring to New Brunswick.

That’s all that is really known about the puzzle. I’ve worked on the crossword puzzle a bit, but I am not sure what it has to do with a solution. The crossword puzzle would have been difficult in 1985, but it’s quite easy with being able to use the internet today. I’ve also decoded a few of the cryptograms in the book, only to find out that they are pretty meaningless.

I live with the hope that I will someday know the solution the puzzle, and how the puzzle worked, but I know that’s most likely never going to happen. I still enjoy paging through the book from time to time, though, wondering what happened to the people who created the puzzle, and remembering myself, paging through the book 33 years ago, dreaming of this long-forgotten treasure.

~Guest Post Written by Kurt Konecny

Kurt Konecny lives in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and has a B.A. in English. After accidentally stumbling across Kit Williams’ book “Masquerade” at the library when he was a child, Kurt became captivated by tales of buried treasure and armchair treasure hunts, and he has carried that love with him through his adult years.

His other hobbies include geocaching and ghosthunting.

Plus, he recently started a podcast called ‘The Strange Sessions’.

Read More of Kurt Konecny’s posts on MW and be sure to check out his ‘The Strange Sessions’!