A Silver Star was awarded to him for his service in the Vietnam War, where he flew 328 combat missions in 365 days. Prior to retirement, he served as a pilot in the United States Air Force and attained the rank of Major.
I tried to think of everything.”ĭiscord has arisen among seekers of the jar over the ultimate question: Should its seal be broken? Whatever the answer, its contents will be known only to the collector who decides finally to break the wax seal and open the jar.Īnd what he didn’t think of was captured in Daniel Barbarisi’s extraordinary book Chasing the Thrill: Obsession, Death, and Glory in America’s Most Extraordinary Treasure Hunt, released in paperback earlier this year. The printed text is so small that a magnifying glass is needed to read the words. It’s in a small glass jar and the lid is covered with wax to protect the contents from moisture. So I placed a 20,000-word autobiography in the chest. Wrote Fenn, “I also wanted to include something personal with the treasure because maybe the lucky finder would want to know a little about the foolish person who abandoned such an opulent cache. But not all that glitters is gold in this event: One collector will walk away with the completely intact, wax-sealed small glass jar purportedly containing at least Fenn’s autobiography. Each coin in this event is graded and resides in an NGC holder noting its place in history as a selection from “Fenn’s Treasure Chest.”įenn also stashed centuries-old gold jewelry in the chest, including a Diquis/Greater Chiriqui Frog Pendant from Costa Rica or Panama, circa 700-1000 AD, and a gold pectoral meant to represent the sun, which comes from Colombia circa 200-600 AD. The auction contains hundreds of coins, among them a 1928 Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle, Liberty Double Eagles, Liberty Half Eagles, Indian Eagles and more. But this auction contains its share of sizable, significant finds, too – among them a 549-gram Alaskan gold placer roughly the size of a hen’s egg. At that same meeting, Sommer wrote, “Forrest gifted the Treasure Chest and its contents” to the man who found it.Įvery piece here – from a Liberty Half Eagle to a centuries-old Colombian gold ornament to even a gold flake or a pair of scissors – will demand the attention of those who heard tell of the hunt for this fabled chest. According to an affidavit signed by Karl Sommer, Fenn’s attorney, “Forrest reviewed all of the contents of the Treasure Chest, confirmed it was the same chest and contents he hid in 2010, and accepted the Treasure Chest” from Stuef.
That title was officially transferred to Stuef on June 11, 2020, when the 32-year-old Michigan native and medical student met Fenn in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It began: “As I have gone alone in there/And with my treasures bold/I can keep my secret where/And hint of riches new and old.” Fenn believed that after he hid the treasure in the mountains, more than 300,000 people searched for what he called his “title to the gold.” Fenn, a native of Temple, Texas, saw the treasure hunt as a fitting farewell to a life well lived – and, he said, as a way to encourage people “to get off their couches.”īefore and even after the chest’s discovery in 2020 by Jack Stuef, Fenn’s story became a nearly mythic tale that began with a simple poem in his memoir The Thrill of the Chase, which contained nine clues to the chest’s whereabouts. On December 12, during Heritage Auctions’ Forrest Fenn’s Treasure, collectors can vie for 476 gold pieces, coins, jewelry and other items found in the chest that was planted in 2010 by the author, decorated fighter pilot and art dealer.
What remains from that famed chest hidden in the Rocky Mountains – for a decade, the stuff of dreams and countless news stories – is now available with the simple click of a button. This time, at least, the hunt for Forrest Fenn’s treasure won’t be so challenging.
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