NC coin maker hides $25K in gold, launches Western NC treasure hunt
A Charlotte coin maker has put $25,000 of gold coins up for grabs.
The treasure? As first reported by Tiny Money, a mason jar is already hidden somewhere on the forest floor in the Blue Ridge Mountains, just off a public hiking trail. Full details can be found at countdowntreasure.com.
Adam Howell, owner of The Achieve Mint and the mastermind behind this hunt, kicked things off Thursday, Oct. 9, with a simple promise: Find the trove, and it’s yours.
“There is a hard deadline to win,” Howell told CharlotteFive. “The treasure will be found in 21 days, when the circle will be a foot wide. It’s 420 miles wide now, and it’ll shrink every day. So if we get to the last day, everyone will know where it is. A lot of treasure hunts in the past, the treasure was never found, and that’s always kind of a bummer.
“Then several treasure hunts, a person has died before the treasure was found. That’s the innovation with this one: It has a hard stop, and I think the excitement will really start to ramp up. As the circle gets smaller and smaller, and the leaves are changing over the next few weekends, you might go out to the mountains anyway — and now hopefully you have an extra incentive.”
How it works
The treasure is sitting inside a mason jar, in plain view.
A live webcam — updated every 10 minutes — is aimed at it around the clock. Each day, an online map shows a 420-mile circle surrounding its location, which shrinks daily over 21 days. On the final day, the map will pinpoint the location to within a single foot.
Looking for an extra edge?
There’s a $20 premium entry for a hint each morning from a drone photo. Half of that fee goes into a winner-take-all side pot.
“If you want a little extra clue and have a leg up on people, I took drone photos going higher and higher, straight up through the trees every day if you upgrade, you get a higher and higher drone photo,” Howell explained. “You have the shrinking circle that everyone sees, but if you pay to upgrade, you also get a rising view of the landscape. The idea is, eventually, those two things will help you have a really good idea where it is and plan accordingly.”
Giving back, and the backstory
Two dollars from every premium entry will also help fund cleanup efforts for Hurricane Helene, with a goal of raising $20,000.
Howell, the 45-year-old Charlottean, owns a company that celebrates achievement with coins and tokens that honor every milestone. This idea was sparked after he participated in a similar treasure hunt with his family outside Boston last year at which a meteorologist won $110K for finding the treasure.
“My family and I would get together in front of the computer every morning during breakfast and look at the latest update, we had such a fun time with it, and the entire time I was just thinking: ‘This would be perfect to do in the Southeast in our mountains,’” Howell said. “The idea never left my head for the whole year.
“Certainly when Hurricane Helene hit last year, right around this time — I knew I as thinking of potentially doing it last year and obviously put that on pause — and then we were just over there a few weeks ago, and there are still a lot of recovery efforts going on. I was excited about potentially raising money to give back to the current relief efforts, but also celebrate fall in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It’s a gorgeous time to be out there.”
This story was originally published October 9, 2025 at 2:44 PM.
