The Secret (a treasure hunt)

 

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Page history last edited by AnotherEditor 7 mos ago

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Welcome to The Secret Wiki

 

This is a wiki for solving The Secret by B. Preiss. This page summarizes the current status of the solutions. More in-depth discussion and analysis (and more imporantly credit for these discoveries) is available at:

 

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Synopsis

Many "armchair treasure hunt" books have been published over the years, most notably Masquerade (1979) by British artist Kit Williams. Masquerade promised a jewel-encrusted golden hare to the first person to unravel the riddle that Williams cleverly hid in his art. In 1982, while everyone in Britain was still madly digging up hedgerows and pastures in search of the golden hare, The Secret: A Treasure Hunt was published in America. The previous year, author and publisher Byron Preiss had traveled to 12 locations in the continental U.S. (and possibly Canada) to secretly bury a dozen ceramic casques. Each casque contained a small key that could be redeemed for one of 12 jewels Preiss kept in a safe deposit box in New York. The key to finding the casques was to match one of 12 paintings to one of 12 poetic verses, solve the resulting riddle, and start digging. Since 1982, only two of the 12 casques have been recovered. The first was located in Grant Park, Chicago, in 1984 by a group of students. The second was unearthed in 2004 in Cleveland by two members of the Quest4Treasure forum. Preiss was killed in an auto accident in the summer of 2005, but the hunt for his casques continues.

 

The Secret is long out of print, but copies can be obtained easily online (try abebooks.com or bookfinder.com; the book was jointly authored by Sean Kelly, John Pierard, Byron Preiss, Ben Asen, John Jude Palencar, Ted Mann, JoEllen Trilling, and Overton Loyd). Most of the book has no connection whatsoever to the treasure hunt. Of primary importance are the 12 paintings and the 12 verses, as well as some front-end material that provides a back story.

 

High Resolution versions of the scanned images are available from:

 

 


 

 

Status

Although no generic formula exists to solve all 12 puzzles, it is possible to identify elements that are common to several images. The current status of those generic solutions appears to be:

 

Q4T Image Verse Lat Lat Long Long City Landmarks Park Map Image to Verse Status Walk-through
1 7 37 38 122 123 San

Francisco

Gh Golden Gate Park Golden Gate Park

Golden Gate Bridge

? Buried ?
2

10 

 

32 33 79 80 Charleston Fort Sumter? ? Charleston? Palmetto Tree Buried ?
3 5 35 36 75 76

Roanoke Island?

Boston?

? ? Roanoke Island? ? Buried ?
4 4 41 42 81 81 Cleveland Terminal Tower Grecian Cultural Garden Ohio "Seek the columns" Found Solution
5 12 41 42 87 87 Chicago Water Tower

Fountain

Grant Park Illinois "Fence and fixture?" Found Solution
6 9 41? 44? 82? 83? St. Augustine ? Ponce De Leon? Florida ? Buried ?
7

2

29   90 91 New

Orleans

Horse Head? Louisiana? City Park? ? Buried ?
8 1 29 30 95 96 Houston Reunion Tower? 8_Park Houston ? Buried ?
9

3

36? 46? 78?

73?

74?

St. Louis?

Montreal?

New York?

Dog Leg? ? ? ? Buried Solution?
10 8 Mill Walk Key   Milwaukee ''Milwaukee

City Hall

? River? ? Buried Solution?
11

11 

42 43 72? 112?

Boston?

Utah?

?

Brigham Young's

Hands

Utah? ? Buried ?
12

6

41   74  

New Jersey?

New York?

Vancouver?

Statue of Liberty

Chrysler Gargoyle

Twin Tower

? Manhattan? ? Buried ?
  • Image - twelve paintings numbered in order found in book.
  • Verse - each verse matches to one image.
  • Lat - latitudes. One or two numbers hidden in each image represent general latitude coordinates of 12 locations. If there is only one coordinate it should be used as a general center latitude. If there are two coordinates they should bracket the location.
  • Long - longitudes. One or two numbers hidden in each image represent general longitude coordinates of 12 locations. If there is only one coordinate it should be used as a general center longitude. If there are two coordinates they should bracket the location.
  • City - the city that was found by longitude and latitude coordinates.
  • Landmarks - a prominent structure or landmark found in the image that identifies a city.
  • Park - monuments, statues, or other large architectural features that identify a single park within the city are hidden or incorporated in the image.
  • Map - the outline of a map may be hidden in the image.
  • Image to Verse - once you know (and probably visit) the park, one of the verses will make sense. There may be a visual clue linking the image and the verse.
  • Status - status of the casques
  • Walk-through - a summary of the clues that lead to the solutions.

 

Summary

According to treasure hunters at Tweleve.org and Quest4Treasure, each image contains some indication of a month, that month's birthflower, and that month's birthstone (also the "wonderstone" prize for that month). These themes apparently have little to do with the solutions. In addition, each of the 12 images is characterized by a month symbolized by a number 1-12 (usually, but not always, in the form of a clock face), the birth flower for that month, and the birthstone for that month (the jewel prize for finding the casque corresponding to that image). The following appear to be themes and trends in the images.

 

Image Verse City Birth

Month

Month

Count

Birth

Stone

Birth

Flower

Immigration

Country

Observations
1 7 San Francisco June Clock (6) Pearl Rose China Image 1
2 3,5,6 Charleston April Clock (4) Diamond Daisy Africa Image 2
3 11 Roanoke Island, Boston January Clock (1) Garnet White Carnation England Image 3
4 4 Cleveland March Triangle (3) Aquamarine Daffodil Greece Image 4
5 12 Chicago May Warts (5) Emerald Lily of the Valley Ireland Image 5
6 9 St. Augustine September Aters (9) Sapphire Aster Spain Image 6
7 2 New Orleans December Clock (12) Turquoise Narcissus France Image 7
8 1 Houston July Columns (7) Ruby Larkspur Arabia Image 8
9 3,5,6 St. Louis, Montreal October Roman Numeral X (10) Opal Calendula Dutch Image 9
10 8 Milwaukee February Red Balls (2) Amethyst Primrose Germany Image 10
11 3,5,6 Boston, Salt Lake City August Globe Gold Sqares (8) Peridot Gladiolus Italy Image 11
12 10 New York City, Vancouver November Clock (11) Topaz Chrysanthemum Russia Image 12

 


 

 

Progress Map

 

 


 

 

To Do List

 

If you want to add to this wiki, but aren't sure where to start, then please check our To Do List.

 

 

 

 

 

Comments (21)

AnotherDoth said

at 12:36 pm on Apr 17, 2006

The purpose of this wiki is to summarize what we know and what we think about the solution to "The Secret" by B. Preiss.

This is not a place for debate or theories. There are great forums available at Tweleve.org and Quest4Treasure (links on the home page of this wiki).

Good luck! Feel free to edit and be sure to add images when you see something.

AnotherDoth said

at 5:30 pm on Apr 17, 2006

Glad to see another user has edited the FrontPage. I modified your formatting, but not your content Anonymous. Please consider editing your text to a **Neutral Point Of View** as shown in:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_vie

Thanks!

AnotherDoth said

at 5:32 pm on Apr 17, 2006

Anonymous said "The Illinois map theory is new to me. I don't see it. Ohio certainly, and maybe Florida, but two do not make a trend.--"

Good point. Just edit the generic solution to reflect your ideas. This is not a forum, you don't have to preserve my text, just edit right over it.

AnotherDoth said

at 12:17 pm on Apr 24, 2006

Tron, I removed your addition to the generic solution that said "(E) Jewel Placement - the location of the jewel within the image is an exact representation of the casque spot. In this way, the image (properly interpreted) is a map." because I have seen no evidence of this in either of the known solutions. If you want to add this back, please first show how it is true by including a comparison of the image and a map where the casque was found. If this "Jewel Placement" theory is true, it could be a very important clue!

forest_blight said

at 7:39 pm on Apr 24, 2006

Feel free to pilfer my treasure-hunting image directory at http://www.geocities.com/quantpsy/trove/

It contains many maps, cropped images, etc. that may save you some time.

AnotherDoth said

at 10:12 pm on Apr 24, 2006

Thanks forest_blight - I continue to be amazed at the great work that you all have done on this puzzle. I feel certain that we are making progress by re-organizing this good information!

forest_blight said

at 3:40 pm on May 3, 2006

Why is the "changes" option no longer available on the front page?

AnotherDoth said

at 8:00 am on May 4, 2006

FB - they moved the changes button to the bottom of the page and renamed it to "Show changes to this wiki". Alternatively, you can type in the URL: thesecret.pbwiki.com\changes.php

Good luck!

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Sonoran said

at 11:59 pm on Jun 26, 2007

I love what you guys have created here. This is an amazing amount of work! Thank you. I'll try to add without stepping on any toes. Changed P1 to reflect a Japanese Tea Garden solution. Created P12 solution for Washington Square Park. Status: Tea Garden for Park. Summary: New York P12 to V6 match.

AnotherDoth said

at 11:24 am on Jun 27, 2007

Sonoran, thanks for the compliment. Thanks even more for adding the information on P1 and P12! Glad to see some interest in this hunt! Have there been any finds lately?

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Sonoran said

at 6:31 pm on Jul 17, 2007

I am working on the To Do List. I cleaned up the Status Table. Mostly, I broke the latitudes and longitudes into separate columns to get a better understanding and concensus on the lat/ long coordinates. One request, could we add Salt Lake City to the Progress Map? What is the difference between blue and red highlights?

AnotherDoth said

at 11:16 am on Jul 31, 2007

Nice work Sonoran Knight. I think we got the Progress Map from forest blight. I'm not sure what the difference between the colors was, perhaps some level of certainty. Although, I think we can only be "certain" about two sites, until someone else digs one up.

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Sonoran said

at 6:15 am on Sep 3, 2007

Just noticed I had "Florida" for Image 6 instead of "St. Augustine". Correction made.

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Sonoran said

at 9:05 pm on Sep 14, 2007

Wow, if you switch between the Classic Mode editor and the Point-and-Click Mode editor it reveals all kind of problems! Lessons learned.

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Sonoran said

at 10:54 am on Sep 15, 2007

Trying to clean up the front page. Sidebar shortened to bring Status Table up. These changes seem to improve the page presentation, but are not set in stone. By all means, if ever disagree with my changes, revert or edit change as you see fit. This is certainly a work in progress tool. I won't be offended if you change my edits. Please help us understand your ideas for changes in the comments for that page.
I noticed we lost the darker green background for the tables. I have not looked into bringing those back yet.

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Sonoran said

at 8:05 pm on Nov 1, 2007

Added Montreal and Salt Lake City to Progress Map. Added key in Progress Map to explain each location city's status. It seems we have four cities at "Possible" status. They are Boston, Montreal, Salt Lake City, and St. Louis. Let me know if you think I missed anything.

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Sonoran said

at 8:02 am on Nov 19, 2007

Because of recent evidence of a Salt lake City match I moved Verse 11 into the possible unmatched verses with 3, 5, and 10. Verse 11 has not gained a concensus to match Salt Lake City; so it seems better to at least not hold it up in Roanoke Island. This may even encourage new discussion. Although it is nice to have as many matches as we get to narrow down the rest, we may have to take this step back and revaluate our matches.

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Sonoran said

at 8:23 pm on Nov 26, 2007

Reverted to an earlier version of the Status chart to reduce confusion.

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Sonoran said

at 9:15 am on Nov 28, 2007

I have returned the data to the original condition that reflects the consensus of the Quest 4 Treasure forum. Sorry, for any confusion I caused with my earlier changes.
Good hunting.
Sonoran

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Sonoran said

at 10:48 am on Nov 29, 2007

I noticed forest blight compiled a list on the Q4T forum back in 2006 that includes all the methods of showing the birth month for that painting. I added the list to the Summary Table. As always, please edit anything I missed or messed up. ;) I pulled Verse 2 back into verse match mix to represent the orginal consensus.

AnotherDoth said

at 4:25 pm on Dec 4, 2007

Sonoran Knight,
You have done well my friend. Keep up the great work.

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