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We learn in the book that Picasso collaborated with Francois Hugo (and later some of Hugo’s family) on the design and creation of gold medallions. The author of TTI correctly states that there were 24 designs made. He goes on to say that only a “small number” of each design were actually made. What I have come to understand is that 20 of each of the 24 designs were made, plus 2-4 for more (artist copies and artist proofs). So at minimum, there are about 22x24 (or 528) of these medallions in existence. Some rough math based on an estimated $30,000 per medallion puts the entire collection at a value of $15M+. Another auction from 2022 shows an entire set of 24 designs being purchased for “only” ~$250,000 (putting each medallion at a value of about $10,000).

Here is one auction site that lists information about the one that is in the book.

Here is a gallery in Dubai that may at one point have been displaying an entire set of all 24 designs

Sotheby’s may have at one point been selling all 24 medallion designs plus 4 additional pendants. The one from the treasure is #15 (xv) in this arrangement.

There are three “gold pendants” in the treasure if you can call the Olympic Gold Medals pendants (I assume they are much larger). These pendnats also remind me of the coins from the smaller box. Thre are a couple that have 2 lines forming an angle - perhaps mimicking the hands of a clock (1, 12, 13).

I notice a bull, too, which has connections to the bull drawing (bison?) in Chapter 20 or may connect to the Chicago Bulls.

Another interesting thing, to me at least, is that of all of the pendants in this collection, the one that feels the closest to the mural illustration is the one in the treasure.

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Firstly, I wonder if he wrote the book (and the puzzles) with the idea that an individual would go about it quite independently, which is how I think he approached his own search for the Forrest Fenn Hunt. Sure, he likely searched and engaged with online communities, but I wonder if the level of information sharing from the outset is what he anticipated. And furthermore, I wonder if he is now surprised, 2 years later, that despite the level of sharing amongst community members that no boxes have been found yet.

With the Pokémon Box, I wonder if and how long it would take an individual who is not sharing or reading things online to arrive at Buffalo National River as a potential candidate. I am 100% certain that I would not have quickly made connections with Jasper<>Jazz Bar or Bouffalant<>Buffalo or Hemmed In Hollow, etc.

With the Appalachian Footpath Box, I wonder how long it would have taken me to find a matching trail. At the beginning, I thought it might be possible that the dashed line serves as directions for going off trail and avoiding or going around obstacles/landmarks (like a tree, an off trail campsite, some rocks, etc.). Maybe I would have tried rotating the map based on the coin angle or the CAR NORTH + Foot Prints and then had an easier time looking for a potential match.

In considering the three ways the author said he designed into the map, I want to consider three new ways that might help identify the starting point for the search:

1. A visual map. We have this and it includes the words BEGIN HERE.

2. A GPS coordinate. Since the AT somewhat diagonally crosses over the more perpendicular longitude and latitude lines, for the most part you only need either a longitude or a latitude number to find a point along the AT. There are a few exceptions of course where the trail doubles back or goes directly horizontal (east-west) or vertically (north-south) for stretches

3. A mile marker. The AT has a published mileage and mile markers. I understand that changes in the trail over time might make the total number of miles expand or contract, but generally it’s in the area just under 2,200 miles.

So let me try and hack together some starting points for each of these.

Visual Map

This one is “easy”. Let’s use the footprints + car north to reorient the map. It then matches up with the AT near Little Rock Pond. And “BEGIN HERE” points to a pretty precise spot to start.

GPS Coordinate

This is idea is a little off the rails. But…the longitude area near the BEGIN HERE triangle reads 43.39 (I’m not going to round it to 43.4, conveniently!). What if the arrangement of some of the icons is meant to give this number?

Or, there is a small 7 and 3 in another corner - maybe 72.9 can now be conveniently rounded up to a latitude of -73?

Mile Marker

This is also is off the rails.

But I can make out the numbers 1679 in one area.

And, if a 0 can be a 6 for me temporarily :), there are some little numbers of a similar style that could be 1-6-7-8.

It’s a good sign (to me, at least) that the author has already done one 2-year anniversary bit of press/engagement. He could very easily take the position of not doing any more interviews, etc. This a position that I know many searchers might prefer, but not me at least for now! At the end of the interview he hinted at some other thing coming up, and folks online have speculated it might be some kind of TV special (e.g. Expedition Unknown). I am definitely looking forward to any and all additional input that might help speed this thing along!

This morning I also saw some posts on Discord wh…

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The reason I am setting aside the historical or biographical information about the context around the treasure item (for this exercise) is that I genuinely think he may have wanted to elevate the prominence of the items included in the treasure by sharing the actual histories (or at least based on what he and his research team came up with). This also goes for any of the details about the item itself that might help someone less familiar with it have a greater sense of its current value or significance.

When I did a 5-clues-per-chapter exercise, here is what I noted for this chapter:

Of these items, I think the World’s Fair and Misattribution ones are things I’d eliminate based on where they are in the text. I do want to leave open that there may be something in the treasure item photo in the chapter title image (e.g., her signature on the photo kind of looks like one of the clouds in the airplane illustration).

What really stands out to me when filtering out some of the chapter is the page with the poems. Even though a new paragraph is not indicated at the top (no indent), it opens with the very strange sentence: “She loved to bend a phrase”.

And then at the bottom of the page, there is a paragraph-line break and a paragraph that starts without an indent.

The formatting on this entire page is unique with the poems especially when compared to any other text-only page throughout the entire book. It could mean that this specific area is something to pay attention to. These poems don’t really add any historical significance to Earhart (just knowing she was a published poet would have been enough). Maybe the misattributed “Only Courage” poem adds some importance to the photo of her landing after the transatlantic flight, but I think general historical context already elevates how significant this accomplishment was.

I have also paid new attention to the sentence at the top of the screenshot above:

If this was just some kind of poetry analysis, I’m not sure that these descriptors tell me all I need to know so maybe this is some crafty way to indicate to pay attention.

Just for reference, here is the entire poem and attribution to Robert Underwood Johnson:

Is it the letters of this words that are important? PF - CEW - MS - MC?

Is it the reference to the previously shared poems (one was named Courage <> mother-courage)?

Anyways, I like giving myself permission to ignore large chunks of a chapter, even if temporarily, as it is helping me notice new things (and of course, who know is those new things are helpful?!).

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