The Treasure of Hang Li: Box 13 (1948)

“The Treasure of Hang Li” is an episode of Box 13, the old-time radio show, first broadcast in 1948. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

Listen to Box 13 free, live around the clock: every episode, in the order it first aired. No sign-up.

What happens

Dan Holiday receives an unsigned letter instructing him to visit a Chinese curio shop and examine a piece of jade called a hang-li piece. When he arrives at Quon High's shop in Chinatown and expresses interest in the mysterious jade, he's taken to a back room and meets the enigmatic Mr. Kwan, who reveals that the piece is part of a larger treasure and is inscribed with a Chinese legend claiming that whoever translates the writing will be led to a fortune beyond price.

Chinatown; a curio shop belonging to Quon High and run by Mr. Kwan

Characters: Dan Holiday, Susie, Mr. Kwan, Quon High's clerk, Lan

Listen for: The description of the jade treasures in the back room; Kwan's discussion of Confucius and jade; the legend of the three pieces of hang-li jade and the treasure it supposedly leads to.

Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.