Hey, thank you both for the response! I've caught up enough to know it's worth the time. It's kind of bewildering to me that something from back then that just struck me as an interesting idea could be so valuable now.
So this private key (or these private keys) I am looking for I imagine will be some value saved somewhere in bitcoin related files on my old hardware? Sorry it has been a long time since I've looked into any of this. I guess I'm just asking what exactly I should be looking for when I go look?
No you can only get the private key if you backup them before you can't find it in the bitcoin wallet files..
If you had the seed phrase you can recover your wallet to other wallet like electrum wallet..
But better to share to us if what wallet you are using..