Forrest Fenn's treasure pieces up for auction

Nov. 15—You may not have found Forrest Fenn's treasure — but you can still own it.

Or at least some pieces.

A Dallas-based auction house announced last weekend it has put roughly 475 items from Fenn's fabled treasure chest — coins, gold pieces, jewelry and other artifacts — in an online auction.

In a news release, Heritage Auctions said a third party, Tesouro Sagrado Holdings LLC, purchased the chest and its contents in September from Jack Stuef, the Michigan man who said he found Fenn's ballyhooed booty somewhere in Wyoming in 2020.

Tesouro Sagrado Holdings then sold the treasure items to Heritage Auctions. The chest itself, as well as a few other items, are not for sale because the limited liability corporation kept those items, according to the news release.

But there's a run on what's available.

Every item already has at least one bid in an auction that runs online through Dec. 11, with a final live bidding process scheduled for Dec. 12. So far, a few goodies are within the reach of someone with a C note and maybe a little more — like the 1879 liberty coin that was going for a bid of $105 on Monday.

Other items on display on the auction house's website — ha.com — include gold nuggets, a gold chest plate from Colombia dating back well over 1,000 years, a pair of scissors and a small glass jar "reportedly" carrying a 20,000-word autobiography Fenn wrote.

The high bid on the jar that encases Fenn's personal autobiography was $12,500 on Monday. How different it is from Fenn's published autobiography, The Thrill of the Chase: A Memoir — which you could find online at Amazon.com for $49 on Monday — is unclear. The jar remains sealed with wax.

"We want as many people as possible to own part of it and carry that treasure around the rest of their lives," David Mayfield, vice president of Heritage Auctions, said of the various treasure items up for bid.

Whether the many plucky adventurers who sought the treasure will be happy with the auction is unknown. To this day, many people still claim they'd solved the mystery of the treasure's whereabouts, though they didn't lay their hands on it.

Others have claimed the entire gig was a fraud — a wild goose chase perpetuated by a Santa Fe entrepreneur who wanted to leave a legacy. And what better way to do that, some say, than to concoct a treasure hunt that would draw hundreds of thousands of people to the Rocky Mountains, which is where Fenn claimed he secreted a chest full of gold, jewels and other artifacts more than a decade ago.

In June 2020, about three months before his death, Fenn announced someone had found the treasure, though he declined to say who it was. Later that year, a medical student from Michigan, Jack Stuef, said he was the finder.

While many hunters accepted that as truth, others questioned its legitimacy, with some suggesting Fenn gave Stuef additional tips on how to find the treasure before Fenn's death in September 2020.

Mayfield said his auction house is confident through its own research it has the contents of the Fenn treasure chest.

Some treasure historians and hunters said Monday the auction provides an opportunity for Fennophiles to still get a piece of the trove.

Daniel Barbarisi, a journalist and Forrest Fenn treasure hunter who wrote the book, Chasing the Thrill: Obsession, Death and Glory in America's Most Extraordinary Treasure Hunt, wrote in an email Monday the auction is "a pretty good outcome for hunters who want to feel close to something they chased for so long.

"I think the best-case scenario would have been that it ended up in a public collection for all to see and visit, but I'm just not sure how realistic that ever was," Barbarisi wrote. "Now, for those who do want to actually own a piece of this thing, maybe this gives them a greater sense of closure."

Longtime treasure hunter Cynthia Meachum wrote in an email the auction allows anyone interested in the treasure to "own a piece of the magic. She also wrote she believes "the auction house taking on the selling of Fenn's treasure legitimizes Jack Stuef was the finder."

Stuef posted a note on the transaction on his website Friday. He said he sold the treasure "in a private transaction. I no longer own any part of the treasure and have no financial interest in its future on the collectibles market."

He said the people who bought it from him prefer to remain anonymous and said they were arranging a sale of the treasure items through Heritage Auctions.

"After my identity was revealed almost two years ago, some fans of the treasure hunt reached out to tell me they hoped they could purchase an item from the treasure to commemorate their own adventures searching for it," he wrote. "I'm happy that today those people finally have the opportunity to do so, with a large number of items from which to choose."

Efforts to reach Stuef for comment Monday were unsuccessful.

The search for Fenn's treasure netted worldwide interest and spawned an annual gathering of campers at Hyde Memorial State Park known as Fennboree, as well as several documentary films and hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles. The state Department of Tourism even produced a video about the search and posted it on a state website.

In 2015, the city of Santa Fe got into the act, proclaiming May 25 as Thrill of the Chase Day in recognition of "visitors who have traveled from all over the world to Santa Fe and its surrounding areas for the purpose of searching for the treasure that Forrest Fenn has hidden ... increasing the prosperity of its lodging and service-related businesses."

While the chase generated excitement about wilderness areas and drew treasure hunters to the outdoors in the Rocky Mountains, the hunt also brought tragedy. At least five people died searching for the treasure. Many others became lost in the wild, prompting risky rescues.

An unknown number spent time and their savings on a search that proved fruitless for all — except Stuef.

The hunt also posed dangers for Fenn and his family. One man broke into his home in 2018, convinced the treasure was hidden in a chest full of linens there. Another man was convicted of stalking Fenn's granddaughter.

Before Fenn's death and since, lawsuits abounded, usually filed by treasure hunters who claimed the noted collector betrayed them or gave unfair clues to hunters he favored.

But anyone who thinks the final sale of the treasure chest items equates to the final chapter of the Forrest Fenn treasure hunt story is likely mistaken, Mayfield said.

"I think the story's just starting," he said. "The story will be part of American folklore from now on."

As for the glass that supposedly contains Fenn's autobiography, Mayfield said it remains sealed with wax. He has no idea what's in it and said it will remain part of the mystery behind the hunt unless the person who buys that jar opens it and reveals what's within.

Besides the many glamorous or exotic artifacts within the chest is a pair of ordinary-looking scissors.

Mayfield said he's heard two possible explanations for the scissors' inclusion.

"I assume the scissors were put in there to help the person who found the chest open the wax seal on the jar," he said.

"But I've also heard rumors — and this is a story with a lot of rumors — that he [Fenn] left them in there by accident."

The high bid for those scissors was $625, by the way.