After solving all four years' metapuzzles, solvers get a diploma
for a Bachelor of Science in Enigmatology, but at the bottom,
where the MIT seal might ordinarily appear, there's a circle
labeled "Oin-cay oes-gay ere-hay" which is clearly Pig Latin for
"Coin goes here." But where's the coin?
There is also a section of Latin text on the diploma, reading:
SCRIBITE ROMANUM NUMERUM PRIMO ET MUTATE EUM IN
NUMERUM ARABICUM.
DEDUCITE QUATTUOR EX MILIBUS PASSUUM IN SECUNDO.
REMOVETE PRIMAM LITTERAM EX QUARTO ET INVERTITE RELIQUAS.
CARITE VERBUM CUSS EX TERTIA.
COMPONITE HAEC QUATTUOR PARTES ET ERIT NUMMUM VOBIS.
This translates into English as:
Write the Roman numeral first and change it into an Arabic
numeral.
Take four of a thousand steps into the second.
Remove the first letter from the fourth and invert the rest.
Do without the word CUSS from the third.
Put these four parts together and you will have the coin.
The metapuzzle answers are IVY, LEAGUE, COURSES, and GOLF.
So for the first instruction we write 4 for the IV in IVY.
The second answer is league, referring to the distance unit which
varied in length but today is most commonly taken to be three
miles. The fraction indicated works out to about 63 feet.
The third instruction turns GOLF into FLO.
Remove CUSS from COURSES to leave ORE.
I'm not sure exactly how the transformation of "league" was
supposed to work, but it was supposed to lead solvers to the
service elevator in building 4. The last two parts spell FLOOR E.
This was a manually operated elevator and you could stop it
anywhere. The coin was taped to the wall in the elevator shaft at
approximately floor E, between floors 2 and 3.
Ken Jacobs provided the following writeup, based on the wrapup
from the 1998 hunt:
The coin was found at 2:30 PM, Sunday afternoon. In the end there
were two teams searching for the coin at the same time, Setec
Astronomy and
Iliaphay. Setec Astronomy had finished basically ALL of the
puzzles by Saturday evening, and that's why the Hunt organizers
handed out the senior year packet ahead of schedule (with Setec
Astronomy's permission.) Iliaphay was the first to determine that
the coin was hidden in an elevator shaft in Building 4, but had
trouble finding the coin. Then Setec Astronomy showed up, and of
course they wanted access to the elevator. Things apparently got
pretty tense; lots of people jammed into the elevator, searching,
more people wanting to get in, all of whom were sleep deprived,
had lots invested in finding the coin, and were understandably
emotional. The elevator was hot and stifling, people were crying
(including some of the Hunt organizers.) An executive session was
held between Hunt organizers and the captains of the two teams. It
was decided that the teams would take turns, 20 minutes each in
the elevator. Since Iliaphay had already been there a while, Setec
Astronomy was given their 20 minutes. No success finding the coin.
Next it was Iliaphay's turn, and they now found the coin in just a
few minutes.
Overall, the Hunt lasted 50 hours. Of the more than 20 teams
which started the Hunt, 11 were still active at the end. One
notable feature was that the wrap-up lasted for a full 10% of the
duration of the Hunt, from 10:00 PM to 3:00 AM Sunday night.