Free Search - USA - November 2008

[gstorm17]

Alright since I've gotten confirmation of my find and my Isis is on the way it's time to post the story of how I came to find the coin.

I heard about the Isis adventure a few years ago when it first started up but at the time it was mostly in the UK. So I forgot about it until a about a month ago when I learned they released more puzzles and expanded to the US. Knowing this I was determined to find a free one here in the states and I noticed this puzzle had yet to be solved completely.

At this point i think it's safe to assume that we've all figured out the numbers were in hexadecimal code which revealed another cypher that when solved created a riddle:

Fire made the second.
England's Glory starts here.
1623 is the place while 1616 gets you there.
Between 1 and 2 at 45 and 90.

Well Chicago's nickname is not only the windy city, it's also called Second City since a large portion of the downtown area was destroyed by fire. There is not much in the city that's explicitly British so that helps narrow the search and 1623 can not be a date considering it predates Chicago's settlement. 1623 does however correspond to the +4 code of Chicago's zip code that happens to include the area containing Buckingham Fountain. Thats the England's Glory we are looking for. I figured the last Line was pin pointing exactly where near the fountain it was. Looking at an arial shot of the fountain it vaguely looks like a compass rose, so starting at North around what I thought would be 1 or 2 o'clock radially I noticed there were the first two of several large statues in the fountain. Located directly between them is a corner the jets out a 90 degree angle, and the stone that makes that angle is formed by two 45 degree angles, and there having been waiting for over two years was our coin.

While my interpretation of the clues may not have been 100%, I can't argue with the results though.

Take care everyone,
Gstorm17

[evilkeen]

Wow, congratulations, and many thanks for posting your story. Puzz riddles sound so simple when you know the answer!

[cornettracing80]

fantastic job!.....pretty spot too!

[Karen_G]

Congratulations gstorm17

Karen

[ScottyBot]

Anyone see the 1st episode of "The Chicago Code"? - new cop drama that's just started showing here in the UK - good shots of the Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park - the coin must have still been in place when the filmed it