Assumptions: Evil Forces are a small cabal (20) people who will be searching for it, starting in a few months. They know you were the one who hid it, but are not willing to torture you. They can spend 50 years searching, but will then give up, and let you retrieve & sell it in peace.
Bury it somewhere that won’t be randomly disturbed, and cannot be traced back to you (and make a map)
An abandoned mine
A patch of desert
Inside a Glacier
In an arbitrary grave
In a dead body, buried in an arbitrary grave
In someone’s garden, at least 6 feet down
In the wall of an arbitrary root or wine cellar
At the base of an old growth grape vine (since you know those aren’t going to get pulled up)
Under the cobblestones of a newly paved street
Given the time period, probably anywhere a little off the beaten path – 3 feet down, 6 feet away from a random road, and no-one would even know you were there.
Have a trusted institution guard it
Deposit it in a safety deposit box at a reputable bank. Probably in Switzerland.
Entrust it to a church
Have it guarded as a national treasure
Give it to a friend who, gives it to a friend, who gives it to another who’s been messing around.
Put it in a gold bar first, to enhance the security
Tie it to a large piece of metal, lower it into a well on a magnent + very long string (to confirm that you can reach the bottom), pull it back up, and drop it in the well.
Conceal it in a piece of construction (again, map needed)
Inside an arbitrary attic
Or Basement
Make a brick with it inside, and install that brick in a wall somewhere
Climb up a church in progress, and slip it in among the stones
Inside a water pipe
In a fence post
Inside one of 6 identical busts of Napoleon
In a wall
Secretly Inter it with someone’s ashes in an urn
Cut a hole in a citrus tree, insert pen, graft on a new branch to cover the hole
Carve a hole in a rock, drop the pen in, place rock in an unassuming spot
Cover pen with something un-digestible and feed it to a long lived animal like a Tortoise
Slip it inside a family heirloom (not from your family)
Put it somewhere very public and secure, like the entry to a police station, but secured so it can’t be stolen without a lot of work (locks/boxes etc)
Put it inside a grandfather clock. Those don’t get disassembled, and are highly likely to remain in the same place for 50 years.
Glue in some out-of-the-way place in a semi-public boiler room. Somewhere that doesn’t get cleaned.
Stick it to the bottom of an ocean ship. It will get barnacled over before the ship comes back to port. Just keep an eye on it, and make sure you get to it before it gets scrapped
Create a duplicate, hide it badly, and let it be stolen. Just keep the real one in a safe at your house.
Keep the pen on you, and hide your own identity
Go to some arbitrary colony and give them a fake name & change your appearance
Live in the wilds of Canada
Join the French Foreign Legion, or equivalent
Murder someone and assume their identity
Change your appearance in some dramatic way, like removing a leg
Change your apparent gender
Just go to a big city. No-one keeps track of every new resident, and there isn’t a photo of you for reference anyway.
Put it on something that’s always moving, like a piece of an automatic loom, so it can’t be removed
Give it to someone else to hide, with instructions that they should pass it on to someone you don’t know (have the map delivered back to you via delayed Western Union delivery)
Mail it to your fake identity in a foreign country, pick it up and re-mail it ad-infinium.
Carefully cut your leg open, and secrete it inside. Conceal scar with pants.
Glue it to the ceiling. No one ever looks up when searching.
In the spine of a random library book
Dissasemble the pen, hide the component pieces in reasonable places. Re-assemble in 50 years.
Replace one part of the pen with a new piece, but keep the old piece. Repeat until you have enough parts to create a second pen from the original parts. Repeat with both “original” pens. Each time one of your duplicates gets stolen, assemble a new “original” pen.
Don’t worry about it. There’s nothing special about Mr. Einstein or the pen. If not him with that pen, someone else or a different writing implement would be used at about that time in history to develop those theories.
#20 reminded me of a bizarre experience where I attempted to pass a hacky-sack through the open windows of a car to a friend of mine, and it disappeared. We looked inside and outside the car for a full 15 minutes before realizing it had landed, balanced, on the narrow handle above the window. We never looked up!
I like two things about this list aside from the ideas: one, the assumptions at the top (I think I will steal this for next time); two, the sub-lists, because it made for easier reading of the ideas even if it messed up the numbering.
Assumptions: Evil Forces are a small cabal (20) people who will be searching for it, starting in a few months. They know you were the one who hid it, but are not willing to torture you. They can spend 50 years searching, but will then give up, and let you retrieve & sell it in peace.
Bury it somewhere that won’t be randomly disturbed, and cannot be traced back to you (and make a map)
An abandoned mine
A patch of desert
Inside a Glacier
In an arbitrary grave
In a dead body, buried in an arbitrary grave
In someone’s garden, at least 6 feet down
In the wall of an arbitrary root or wine cellar
At the base of an old growth grape vine (since you know those aren’t going to get pulled up)
Under the cobblestones of a newly paved street
Given the time period, probably anywhere a little off the beaten path – 3 feet down, 6 feet away from a random road, and no-one would even know you were there.
Have a trusted institution guard it
Deposit it in a safety deposit box at a reputable bank. Probably in Switzerland.
Entrust it to a church
Have it guarded as a national treasure
Give it to a friend who, gives it to a friend, who gives it to another who’s been messing around.
Put it in a gold bar first, to enhance the security
Tie it to a large piece of metal, lower it into a well on a magnent + very long string (to confirm that you can reach the bottom), pull it back up, and drop it in the well.
Conceal it in a piece of construction (again, map needed)
Inside an arbitrary attic
Or Basement
Make a brick with it inside, and install that brick in a wall somewhere
Climb up a church in progress, and slip it in among the stones
Inside a water pipe
In a fence post
Inside one of 6 identical busts of Napoleon
In a wall
Secretly Inter it with someone’s ashes in an urn
Cut a hole in a citrus tree, insert pen, graft on a new branch to cover the hole
Carve a hole in a rock, drop the pen in, place rock in an unassuming spot
Cover pen with something un-digestible and feed it to a long lived animal like a Tortoise
Slip it inside a family heirloom (not from your family)
Put it somewhere very public and secure, like the entry to a police station, but secured so it can’t be stolen without a lot of work (locks/boxes etc)
Put it inside a grandfather clock. Those don’t get disassembled, and are highly likely to remain in the same place for 50 years.
Glue in some out-of-the-way place in a semi-public boiler room. Somewhere that doesn’t get cleaned.
Stick it to the bottom of an ocean ship. It will get barnacled over before the ship comes back to port. Just keep an eye on it, and make sure you get to it before it gets scrapped
Create a duplicate, hide it badly, and let it be stolen. Just keep the real one in a safe at your house.
Keep the pen on you, and hide your own identity
Go to some arbitrary colony and give them a fake name & change your appearance
Live in the wilds of Canada
Join the French Foreign Legion, or equivalent
Murder someone and assume their identity
Change your appearance in some dramatic way, like removing a leg
Change your apparent gender
Just go to a big city. No-one keeps track of every new resident, and there isn’t a photo of you for reference anyway.
Put it on something that’s always moving, like a piece of an automatic loom, so it can’t be removed
Give it to someone else to hide, with instructions that they should pass it on to someone you don’t know (have the map delivered back to you via delayed Western Union delivery)
Mail it to your fake identity in a foreign country, pick it up and re-mail it ad-infinium.
Carefully cut your leg open, and secrete it inside. Conceal scar with pants.
Glue it to the ceiling. No one ever looks up when searching.
In the spine of a random library book
Dissasemble the pen, hide the component pieces in reasonable places. Re-assemble in 50 years.
Replace one part of the pen with a new piece, but keep the old piece. Repeat until you have enough parts to create a second pen from the original parts. Repeat with both “original” pens. Each time one of your duplicates gets stolen, assemble a new “original” pen.
Don’t worry about it. There’s nothing special about Mr. Einstein or the pen. If not him with that pen, someone else or a different writing implement would be used at about that time in history to develop those theories.
#20 reminded me of a bizarre experience where I attempted to pass a hacky-sack through the open windows of a car to a friend of mine, and it disappeared. We looked inside and outside the car for a full 15 minutes before realizing it had landed, balanced, on the narrow handle above the window. We never looked up!
I like two things about this list aside from the ideas: one, the assumptions at the top (I think I will steal this for next time); two, the sub-lists, because it made for easier reading of the ideas even if it messed up the numbering.
Also I got a solid chuckle out of #19 and #20.