Hint of "Riches"
When I initially read the poem’s words: “Hint of riches new and old” I assumed the new and old treasures are contained within the chest - nothing more. There are nine clues in the poem and most of the other words likely help us with understanding the clues. He said there are hints in his memoir, The Thrill of the Chase but right in the poem he also hints at something. Most searchers may gravitate to the concept that “new and old” hint to New Mexico and maybe Mexico.
But what if the hint is riches as in the names “Riches” the name? Richard Weatherill was incorrectly spelled as “Weatherell” by Forrest in his memoir. I wrote about these misspellings in my book Finding Forrest Fenn as sources of aberrations and this one could be hinting about one of the “riches” or Richard Weatherill. Mr. Fenn continually hints of how special his bracelet is in the treasure chest and the bracelet had 22 turquoise beads found at Mesa Verde which were set in silver. There may be a hint in which he said on the Mysterious Writings blog that there was no silver in the chest but what about that important bracelet, it is made of silver? Surely he could not have forgotten about the one thing he wants back. Maybe he doesn’t really want the bracelet back but rather he wants to bring out attention to it or the founder of those beads.
One other consideration is maybe the word “weather” that is the connection to this Rich.
Recently on scrapbook 145 he mentioned Dr. Richard Blake and I speculate he is the new Rich. Richard Blake is an expert on the sun. The magnetic poles on the sun swap every 22 years and in that same post he said earlier that gas cost 11 cents. Previously on Mysterious Writings he commented on movies costing 11 cents and he also said movies lie to us but more on that later. It is well know that the sun spot activity on the sun peaks on a 11 year cycle. Could Mr. Fenn’s special spot be related to the sun? The sun is a star as in Dancing with the Stars. The sun creates rainbows at exactly 42 degrees and what about those sun dog type rainbows for those that found all those dog hints interesting.
The ace of aces in WW=2 was "Richard" IRA Bong was assigned to the 9th Fighter Squadron (aka "Flying Knights"), 49th Fighter Group. He flew the P-38 Lightning as well. He is a "Rich" worth considering and the answer to why Mr. Fenn keeps referencing Marijuana and "smoking things."
One other Rich worth looking at is Baron Von Richthofen. Rich -tho- Fen or the Red Baron has some interesting connections which I will discuss later.