How to Find the Treasure Appraisal Guide in Stardew Valley

There’s no shortage of books, yet one tome in particular will have you searching for quite some time. Here’s how to find the Treasure Appraisal Guide in Stardew Valley.

How to Find the Treasure Appraisal Guide in Stardew Valley

Books are worth their weight in gold, usually literally, in Stardew Valley. And that’s for good reason. Books can net you skills the ability to run faster (don’t ask me how that works) or pure experience in a variety of categories. But the Treasure Appraisal Guide offers a much more profitable skill. Unfortunately, it can only be found in two places.

You can find the Treasure Appraisal Guide in Mystery Boxes or in Artifact Troves in Stardew Valley. This makes finding this book boil down to random luck.

You’ll be able to find Mystery Boxes when you get a cutscene at night of Mr. Qi randomly dropping them over town in a small cutscene. I unlocked this cutscene on Summer Day 1, as Spring turned over to the new season. Once this happens, you’ll wake up with a notification saying that Mystery Boxes can now be found.

Mystery Boxes can be found in all types of ways. I’ve found my first one by cutting down a tree, and my second by killing a monster. But you can also get Mystery Boxes through Fishing Treasure Chests, mining, digging up Artifact/Worm Spots, or even as rewards in the Trout Derby and SquidFest festivals. Once you have a Mystery Box, you can open it similar to a geode at the Blacksmith for a nominal fee. But the loot table of a Mystery Box is truly random, so your likelihood of getting the much-coveted Treasure Appraisal Guide is very low.

The second option is to get Artifact Troves. Artifact Troves are just like Mystery Boxes, but they can only be obtained in a select number of ways. You can get a trade for one with the Desert Trader for five Omni Geodes, kill Haunted Skulls in the hopes that they’ll drop, or dig up Artifact/Worm spots on Ginger Island.

It all boils down to dumb luck! But you know what isn’t dumb luck? Mayor Lewis’ prize box, which gives you a conveyor belt of goods. Including carrot seeds!