An Arkansas man believes he’s found a diamond worth a shiny one million dollars in a former open pit mine that was turned into a state park more than fifty years ago.
Jack Pearadin, a Navy reservist, thought his 13-year diamond hunting hobby wasn’t paying off until he and his friend shoveled a six-carat diamond from the ground in Crater of Diamonds State Park, located about 100 miles southwest of Little Rock.
Now, collectors are telling him the 6.03-carat yellow gem that appeared when he rinsed the gravel from his bucket later at his home workshop could be worth more than a million dollars, he said.
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Pearadin said as he live streamed the discovery on TikTok. “Holy crap, we got a big one!”
About the size of a fingernail, the diamond is the largest found this year at the park, ABC reported.
Thousands of gem hunters visit the state park in Murfreesboro, Arkansas, each year, paying $15 a day to fill a bucket with gravel from the area. Amethysts, garnets, jaspers, agates, quartz, and other rocks and minerals naturally occur in the 37-acre field, which is the eroded surface of a volcanic crater.
More than 37,000 diamonds have been discovered since the former mine became part of a state park in 1972, according to its website.
People can keep what they find. Most of the diamonds discovered are small and worth only a couple hundred collars.
But not all.
“Notable diamonds found at the Crater include the 40.23-carat Uncle Sam, the largest diamond ever unearthed in the U.S.; the 16.37-carat Amarillo Starlight; the 15.33-carat Star of Arkansas; and the 8.52-carat Esperanza,” according to the park.
Pearadin, originally from Missouri, moved to Murfreesboro to pursue his hobby, saying “I love it that much.”
Diamonds are formed with heat and pressure inside the earth and then are propelled to the surface with volcanic activity before they’re scattered by the natural elements, according to geologists.
Natural diamonds found by hunters are often cloudy and oddly shaped. They lose about a quarter of their weight when they’re cut and polished into a useable gem.
“The Uncle Sam crystal was cut and polished into a 12.42-carat diamond gifted to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, where it’s on view in the Great American Diamonds exhibit,” ABC reported.
One certified gem appraiser told a news outlet that Pearadin’s diamond typically would go for $250,000, much less than a cool million but still an impressive take.
Whatever it fetches, Pearadin said he plans to split the profits with fellow gem hunter Michael Schumacher of Wisconsin, who helped dig the gravel that produced the stone.
Pearadin also named his big diamond. He’s calling it the “American Dream.”
Breitbart contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of the Los Angeles crime novel Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
