A Michigan jeweler, frustrated with the coronavirus pandemic and looking for ways to keep himself and keep busy, decided to shut down, pack his inventory, and bury around $ 1 million statewide, in order to sell treasure hunts.
Johnny Perri has been a jeweler for most of his life: He learned the trade from his father and ran a family business in Washington Township for more than two decades, according to his website.
But the COVID-19 pandemic stifled his business, and he was “going crazy” at home amid the coronavirus shutdown, “eager to do something but with nothing to do.”
Then, he said, he saw a news report about someone who finally found Forrest Fenn’s infamous treasure, a literal chest filled with gold that Fenn, a New Mexico antiques dealer, allegedly hid in the Rocky Mountains a decade ago.
In this July 4, 2014 photo, Forrest Fenn poses at his home in Santa Fe, NM.
(Luis Sanchez Saturno / Santa Fe New Mexican via AP)
An anonymous treasure hunter unearthed it last month, according to Fenn, though skeptics have questioned whether it was all a hoax.
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Either way, the story gave Perri the idea of burying his own treasure: a million-dollar inventory taken off the shelves of his own store, J&M Jewelers.
“What Mr. Forrest Fenn really wanted is what seemed most true to me,” Perri wrote on his website. “He would get up off the couch and get out of the house and venture outside.”
So with Amy, his then-fiancee, whom he recently married, he began burying treasures in “forests, rivers, streams, mountains and waterfalls.”
“We go through waterfalls, streams, kayak everywhere,” Detroit told Fox 2. “As soon as I post the tracks, the race begins.”
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The tracks are part of the hunts, which he calls “treasure missions.” They require a pre-purchased ticket and start on a specific date and time.
“You follow the puzzle, you have a little ingenuity, a little adventure in you, you will find it fast,” Perri told Fox 2. “I don’t expect it to last more than a week.”
Whoever finds the treasure first has the option of keeping it or selling it to Perri at its cash value. The prizes are currently worth around $ 4,000.
And “X” marks the place, literally. He said he painted an X above, next to, or below each treasure, in part to prevent hunters from destroying property or nature with unnecessary excavation.
“I have buried not only all of my jewelry, but thousands and thousands of dollars of gold, silver, diamonds, and antiques in various places in Michigan, from the bottom to the upper peninsula,” Perri wrote on his websites. “Everything I have buried has a history and many attached memories that I have let go and put on the ground for you to discover.”
Although, he insinuated, the prizes might not always be buried, but could be hidden or even hang from the trees.
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The first search begins on August 1 at 10 am ET with a prize of two 100-ounce bars of .999 silver, and tickets already sold out at $ 50 per team of two.
A second is slated for two weeks later, with future dates not yet announced.
