Jon Collins-Black Photo: Supplied
What would you do if you became a billionaire?
Well when, Jon Collins-Black has found himself in that position, and decided to recapture the imagination of his youth and set up a treasure hunt across America.
His new book There's Treasure Inside contains all of the necessary clues to find the five treasure chests.
Collins-Black told Sunday Morning the idea was inspired by his hunt for art dealer Forrest Fenn's treasure years ago.
"I think [the treasure hunter] spirit was always with me and I was like 'wow, what would it be like to go out and hunt for treasure?' I did a lot of research and that's when I came across Forrest Fenn's treasure and I got really into it for a while."
Collins-Black hid five treasure chests across America, each with their own themes and unique mechanics.
"One of the treasures is larger than the other four and the other four are around similar size," he said.
There was even a treasure box themed around Forrest Fenn and that included some of his original treasures.
The puzzle boxes also included a fourth century BC gold greek loral, a 1960 gold olympic mental won by sprinter sprinter Wilma Rudolph, and even Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's sapphire diamond brooch.
The whole process took Collins-Black five years, which he believed was well worth it.
"This is a venture to get people off of their cell-phones, away from TVs and out into nature because we have this beautiful world outside, and I don't think we pay attention to it as much as we should.
"That was one of the things that I really experienced when I was searching for Forrest Fenn's treasure, just the joy of being outside."
The billionaire made his fortune by creating several successful job hunt websites after the financial crisis.
"There was a lot of unemployment in the United States and people were looking for jobs, so I created free job sites for people to get information on how to apply and the best places to look," he said.
Collins-Black sold the websites and invested most of the money into Bitcoin which was a "good financial investment."
A digital version of his book was set to be released in the next few days. The physically copies sold out but Collins-Black wanted the book to be accessible to all.
"I really wanted to open this up to everyone no matter what their background is.
"I think it's a lot about having the right spirit. It may sound like a cliché' but its really not, its really about the experience of going out and hunting," he said.
All five treasure chests remained unfound but all were on public land, no further than 4.8 kilometres from a road and were not buried underground.
