Summary
Dungeons & Dragonsfans have a chance to go on an actual quest with a chest of treasures at the end thanks to Jon Collins-Black, who has spent five years creating a real-life treasure hunt that any adventuring party can participate in with his book,There’s Treasure Inside, offering all the clues necessary to find the loot. A hoard fit for a dragon, the treasure is spread out across the United States in five chests. While four are of similar sizes, the fifth is much larger and worth significantly more. A treasure hunter himself, Collins-Black, spent half a decade collecting an assortment of rarities to entice everyone to seek out these boxes.
The treasure includes gold, antiques, shipwreck bounties, and rare gems, as one may expect, as wellas rare Pokémon cards, sports memorabilia, and artifacts owned or touched by historical figures, including Pablo Picasso, Amelia Earhart, Henry David Thoreau, and Louis Comfort Tiffany. A long-time fan of puzzles, games, and adventures, Collins-Black has created a quest worthy of any adventuring party to move beyond the table and bring their problem-solving skills into the real world.
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Screen Rantspoke with real life treasure hunter and curator Jon Collins-Black about his new bookThere’s Treasure Inside. He explained how he tookinspiration from Dungeons & Dragonsand his love of games. Collins-Black also shared details about the treasure, what inspired him to become a real life Dungeon Master when creating this treasure hunt, and the theme that everyone is a treasure hunter.
“1983 Basic Players Box Set with The Red Dragon On A Hoard Of Treasure” Inspired The Treasure Jon Collins-Black Cultivated
This seems so cool. It feels like you get to go on an actual quest in real life for treasure, which I am all about. I have a D&D group and I will for sure be like, “We have to do this, guys.” Can you talk to me about what the inspiration was for you and how D&D maybe played a role in that?
Jon Collins-Black: Yeah, I mean, this project was born, I think, from a confluence of different factors. First of all, there was COVID, right, so we were all stuck at home trying to figure out what we were going to do with the next stage of our lives. I had actually been a treasure hunter and I had searched for treasure and I’d really seen that side of it, in real life.
So I had really seen that side of it and how kind of thrilling it was to try to solve clues and to come up with ideas, and to then go out actually into nature and look around. I had spent literally several months of my life doing that. And so I always thought it would be really cool to be on the other side of it and kind of, I guess Dungeon Master it. Create the adventure.
I was in a unique financial situation where I had the means by which to do it, and the time, because I was basically a stay at home dad in COVID. And so yeah, that was kind of the impetus. It was a moment of inspiration where I got this idea and I was like, Okay, I got to do this. How am I going to do this? What is this going to be? And then from there it kind of evolved.
I think thatin reference to D&D, we could talk more about that, but once it had the impetus of like, I’m going to do this thing. I’m going to create a treasure hunt. I got to put a treasure together. I want to put a really cool treasure together. What in the world am I going to put together? The first image that came to my mind was probably influenced by that 1983 basic players box set with the red dragon on a hoard of treasure and the guy’s got the sword.
This idea of gold coins and rare gems and then a gold chalice. I really wanted a gold chalice, which it really became really hard to find, like a really cool historical gold chalice. And then I have a Tiffany vase that kind of fits that mold too. I think my first vision for the treasure, what it would be, was really influenced by those childhood campaigns that I did.
Somehow, my mind went back 40 years. And that was kind of the thing I thought about. I didn’t think about pirate treasure, and I didn’t think about other things. I thought about the hoard of a dragon’s treasure. That was the image.
What was your process, as Dungeon Master, to create these puzzles and these clues so that it was possible for people to find it, but not so easy that someone could trip over it?
Jon Collins-Black: Well, I guess we’ll find out, right? We’ll find out how well I did. Because it’s really challenging. I think one of the reasons it took me almost five years to do everything, to write the book, to get the treasure, to hide the treasure, all the different aspects of it, is because I couldn’t really collaborate. I didn’t want anyone else to have the pressure or responsibility of being in the know.
I really had to do this myself. And so I couldn’t test it. I couldn’t really run it by people. So I think that what helped me was having searched for treasure before, kind of having an idea of translating clues from the written word to actually out into nature. Also that me and my wife even outside of D&D, we’re into games and puzzles and escape rooms. So I have a working knowledge of how things can be put together. So I attempt to use a variety of things.
So I have five treasures I’ve hidden, one is larger than the other four, so I have clues in most of my chapters. Most of my book is kind of open game for clues to the largest treasure. And then I have four specific chapters for each of the other four treasures. So that I could organize it, because I didn’t want it to become just chaos. In those four chapters I gamified a bit more. I have real games and puzzles and it’s a bit tongue in cheek. I just kind of get a little nerdy with it.
But I feel like hopefully there’s things that appeal to different personality types. There’ll be different types of puzzles for different types of people, and some people might be inspired to go after one particular treasure versus another based on how well they feel like they understand what those clues might be.
“The Book Uses That Theme Of We’re All Treasure Hunters”
Can you talk to me a little bit about the process of writing the book and finding ways to gamify this?
Jon Collins-Black: So I wanted the book to have an overarching structure. I didn’t want it to just be a book of games and puzzles only. Because I thought that that was a little simplified. So I did want there to be some real good reading hopefully, entertaining reading. So what happened was I acquired all these objects, about 65–70 really cool unique objects. And then I was like, I really want to really research the history behind all of these, anything related to the history of these objects. And so I was like, “Man, that’s going to be a lot.”
So I hired five researchers who worked with me for six months researching all the stories and histories of all of these items and then coming back with the best. It was really inspirational stories. There were lots of surprises that I didn’t even realize related to the histories of all these items. So really once I got that, I realized that these items could kind of write the arc of the book.
The book would be entertaining and maybe a little bit funny and maybe a little bit inspirational, and that’s going to come through the stories of the items. To kind of tie it all together, it was the theme of we’re all treasure hunters. Whether or not you want to go do this quest, or you’re questing for something else in your life, whether it’s love or your job or your career or whatever it is that you want more of, and you’re out trying to pursue.
We’re all treasure hunters. So the book uses that theme of we’re all treasure hunters. So there are things that we can learn through the stories of these items that might inform us on how to become the best treasure hunter we can be whatever it is we want to become, or whatever it is we want to acquire in life.
So there’s a bit of that throughout it. I use a variety of different techniques to kind of insert clues through the text, and maybe some of the images or whatever. Basically it’s all free game, so people kind of have to look very closely. In fact, one of the items in the treasure is a magnifying glass, from Fabergé from like the 1900s. It’s worth a lot of money, but I was like, I’ve got to have a magnifying glass. So I have a chapter, I think the subtitle is “Pay attention to the details,”, you know. So things like that I really tried to have fun with it.
I was immediately drawn to the fact that you had something from Pablo Picasso and Amelia Earhart in there. Did you have maybe a specific treasure that you got put in here where you’re like, that’s my favorite, that’s the thing that stuck out to me as the most fun or exciting?
Jon Collins-Black: Yeah, that’s a great question. The answer is yes and no, because it was not just, I couldn’t pick a favorite. I certainly had some that were closer to being my favorite. We have a 96 carat emerald that’s in the treasure, and I say we because I kind of speak to me and the searchers as a group. Because now that the treasure’s out there, it belongs to the collective. But yeah, I have a 96 carat emerald from Chavar Colombia, which is just, to hold it is just like, Ah! It’s so magical.
My dad’s favorite was a sapphire and diamond broach from Jackie Onassis when she was in the White House. And he was like, “Are you sure you want to put this in the treasure box? Are you sure? You don’t want to just keep this here?” And I was like, “Yeah, I want to keep it here, but I have to put it in the box.”
When I was in high school and college my favorite authors were Emerson and Thoreau. And so when I came across two pages of Henry Davis Thoreau’s journal, like original journal. And so for me personally, I was like, that is so cool because his journal is what he used to actually write his books. I mean I could go down the line. And then there’s the gold chalice, and I think I like that because I suffered and labored so hard, I was like, “This is going to be easy to find.” And I was like, months later I’m like, “I’m still searching for this thing.”
Jon Collins-Black Shares Details About The Amelia Earhart Autograph
When I saw Amelia Earhart, I’m like, “That’s the coolest thing ever.” Because I was very, very into Amelia Earhart when I was a kid growing up and all that kind of stuff. So that was very cool to me.
Jon Collins-Black: So the Amelia Earhart autograph, just so you know, when I got that at auction and when we started researching it, they had mislabeled that. And so that picture that is on there that she autographed is when she landed in London Derry, Ireland, when she flew across the Atlantic and she’s standing on the plane that she flew across the Atlantic. If people go back and they kind of reverse engineer and go back to the auction and see where I got that, it’ll have different information, but it was actually the flight that made her an icon.
One of the things that I think is very cool about this is that you make a point to say, anyone can do this. This is not crazy, super hard where it’s going to be impossible. Anyone can do this. Why was that so important for you, as not only a theme in your book, but just thematically for this entire experience?
Jon Collins-Black: Theoretically I could have made this treasure hunt even bigger and wilder, but I felt like there was a point at which people might get a little too excited. I had seen it in some of the experiences that watching other people search for treasure. And I really wanted to try to protect people as much as I could from doing anything that might put themselves in harm. Because this is about going out, I’m a real proponent of getting outdoors, getting away from your cell phone, getting away from your TV, going out and exploring nature. Really being present in the world.
We have this beautiful country to explore. If I can get thousands of people just out searching, then that’s a victory itself. But in that, sometimes I think people can get a little too excited. So I really wanted to make a point that nothing’s in a situation that’s dangerous. You might have to put a little bit of effort into it, but you shouldn’t have to risk your life or your limb or injury. You shouldn’t have to scale a mountain or swim a river or, I’m exaggerating a little bit, but I go through it in detail.
I have a whole postscript that I wrote just about safety. I just really wanted to verify that people watch out for themselves and watch out for others. I really also am a proponent of people searching with a friend. Because I think it’s more fun with friends, but also because you just watch out for each other. And I think we wanted to have fun, but be safe at the same time.
“Wow, It Does Look Like Something I Would’ve Thought That I Would’ve Found On A Quest.”
You said that cover was one of the inspirations for you. Were there other pieces of D&D for you where it kind of maybe even snuck in and you didn’t necessarily realize it until looking back?
Jon Collins-Black: Well, I kind of feel like getting so many historical items is kind of getting special items on a quest. If I could have had a cloak of invisibility, if I could have put that in a treasure box, I would have, something like that. It’s interesting. So I grew up in a really rural area. There wasn’t a lot around, there weren’t really people to play D&D with when I was a kid. We had a Walden Books, and I was probably 10 or 11 when that basic set came out. So I played a lot of solo adventures or I would just DM and also [play]. I would do both, for myself or whatever.
And then it’s interesting, I moved to LA, I happened to get into a friend set who was really into amongst other things gaming. So I had this resurgence in my late thirties and forties of gaming, but then I had really a bunch of people. Now once a year we actually throw a weekend extravaganza at our house and we had 30 people come and slumber party for three days every January.
But I just think that the ethos of that, more than specifics, I mean I think specifically the visuals. I will say that there was a day where we went into the studio to shoot, and I had done individual shots of each item, because I really wanted those to be the stars of the book. But we brought in the large treasure chest and a lot of the items, most of the items with it, and did kind of glamour shots.
Seeing everything together for the first time, I was like, “Wow, it does look like something I would’ve thought that I would’ve found on a quest.” At the very end, after you did everything you had to do, you got to count your loot. I was like, Wow, it’s really amazing how all these pieces came together to kind of create that image." So that was a really big win. It was very satisfying for me that day.
About There’s Treasure Inside
There’s Treasure Inside is the culmination of close to five years of work. The author worked with experts in several fields to put together a treasure both unique and valuable. Worth millions of dollars and growing more valuable each day, the pieces in the treasure are as varied as they are unique. Chosen to appeal to as many different tastes and interests as possible, items include Bitcoin, antiquities, shipwreck bounty, rare Pokémon cards, sports memorabilia, gold, precious metals and rare gems. Other objects have historical significance, including ones made or owned by the likes of Pablo Picasso, Andrew Carnegie, George Washington, Amelia Earhart, Jackie Onassis, Henry David Thoreau, and Louis Comfort Tiffany.
You can pre-orderThere’s Treasure Insideherebefore it hits shelves on October 21.
