That treasure chest hidden in the West. Here's the story.
The amount of time and money spent by treasure hunters completely dwarfs the treasure. Of course that's not the point.
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Improbably, Fenn recovered from the cancer, but he decided to hide the treasure anyway, unaccompanied by his bones. Often, when Preston visited, Fenn would take him into his walk-in vault and show him the latest configuration of booty. “He took stuff out and put stuff in,” Preston remembers. “He was having a lot of fun thinking about what was going to be in that chest.” Early versions contained antique silver and gold watches and gemstones, including an amethyst, a topaz, and a star ruby. Fenn added a bunch of $1,000 bills. Then he removed them, realizing they would rot over time.
One of Fenn’s concerns was how he would know whether the treasure had been found, should that occur in his lifetime. He pondered various strategies, at one point including a document (a bearer bond or bank letter in an amount Preston recalls as $100,000) that a finder would need to present at a bank, triggering Fenn’s notification. Then Fenn removed that, too, figuring that banks might no longer be around to honor the obligation. He ended up putting something else in the chest, an unknown item he never revealed to anyone, which would somehow let him know when the treasure was discovered.
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