Welcome Three Investigators Fans! In "The Secret of Terror Castle", Jupiter won the use of a Rolls Royce and chauffeur from the Rent-'n-Ride Auto Rental Company by guessing the number of beans contained in a jar. Jupiter spent about 3 days calculating how much space was in the jar, and how many beans it would take to fill that space. We're not offering up the use of a Rolls Royce BUT we are offering you a chance to win some neat Three Investigators prizes!
"Whiskers!" you say, "What do I have to do?"
Well, just like Jupiter did, you have to be the person to make the closest guess as to how many beans are in the jar pictured at the bottom of this page. But please don't spend 3 days making calculations! We can't give you any hints so you'll just have to use the visual clues provided in the photo. We can say that the jar is an ordinary round jar (it is not a trick jar with a hollow core) which was filled to the top with dried beans.
"Golly gee! That's sounds easy enough, what can I win?"
GRAND PRIZE:
SECOND AND THIRD PRIZES:
Each will receive one of the original Mark Zahn signed internal illustrations he created for the special re-issue of his 3I fan story "The Three Investigators in the Secret of the 3 Impostors".
INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Make your best guess on how many beans are in the jar.
2. Push the ENTER button next to the picture of the bean jar - this will bring up an e-mail form.
3. IMPORTANT: You must write "3I Contest" or something very similar for the e-mail subject because I will trash any e-mail with which I'm not familiar or suspect may contain a virus.
4. Within the e-mail please include your name and the number of beans in the jar. I will also need a viable e-mail address where I can contact you after the contest closes (only if it's not the address you are using to send your entry).
OTHER IMPORTANT STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW:
1. Contest ends Thursday August 15th, 2002 at 11:59 PM Central Time and the winners will be announced and contacted the weekend of August 17 & 18, 2002.
2. As far as we're concerned, anyone anywhere in the world may enter and prizes will be sent free of charge to the winners. This contest is void where prohibited.
3. ONE entry per person per e-mail address and/or residential address. Please do not send multiple entries or enter all of your friends or family members, these e-mails will be disqualified.
4. The sponsors assume no responsibility for lost, misdirected, illegible (English, please) or late entries or for failed computer transmissions or technical failures.
5. In the event of a tie, the entry received first will take precedence.
6. Your e-mail address will NOT be used or sold for mailing lists or any other purpose except to contact the contest winners.
7. Employees of www.threeinvestigatorsbooks.homestead.com (that would be just Seth), and of any participating sponsor (that would be Mark Zahn and his staff), and their immediate family members, are not eligible.
8. Seth and Mark wish you all Good Luck!
THE CONTEST IS ENDED!
TOTAL # OF BEANS IN THE JAR: 2316
I want to thank the many people from around the world who took a moment to enter our contest. I had the pleasure of opening and reading each e-mail entry. Many expressed kind words and shared their enthusiasm for the Three Investigators. Some entrants told how they had arrived at their final guess for the number of beans in the jar - one fan even wrote a terrific short story where Jupiter explains to Alfred Hitchcock how he derived the number of beans in the original bean jar contest in "Terror Castle" - maybe I'll include this on the site soon!
We had definite entries from the USA, Germany, England, Sweden, Japan, Malaysia, India, Australia and Canada (there may have been other countries represented as well). Approximately 82% of the total entries were from Germany - they remain the undisputed largest group of Three Investigators fans in the world! Again, our thanks to all. Maybe we'll try something similar soon . . .
AND OUR WINNERS ARE:
FIRST PLACE: Alex Sablowski from Germany. Guessed 2312 (off by 4)
SECOND PLACE: Birgit Baumann from Germany. Guessed 2397 (off by 81)
THIRD PLACE: Jon Curtis from USA. Guessed 2233 (off by 83)
CONGRATULATIONS!
