A man in Arkansas visited a famous state park with his girlfriend and ended up walking out with a 4.87-carat diamond—the largest colorless diamond found in the park this decade.
At Crater of Diamonds State Park, anyone, foreigner or citizen, can come and comb through the hills and ditches for diamonds, which is exactly what Jerry Evans from Lepanto was doing in spring of 2023.
Within ten minutes of entry, Evans saw what he thought was a piece of glass on top of a plowed ridge, picked it up, and stuffed it in his pocket.
“I thought it might be a piece of glass, it was so clear. I really didn’t know,” Evans said. “We were picking up everything thinking it was a diamond.”
He later sent the stone to the Gemological Institute of America for identification on the hunch that it was something more than just broken glass.
A few weeks later, he heard back that it was a near-colorless diamond.
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“When they called and told me it was real, I was tickled to death!”
“While I get many emails from people wanting me to identify something they’ve found here, to my recollection, this is the first time someone has contacted me after they’ve had a diamond identified by the GIA,” said Assistant Park Superintendent Waymon Cox. “I’m glad that Mr. Evans was able to bring his historic diamond back to the park to have it officially registered.”
Over 75,000 diamonds have been found at Crater of Diamonds State Park, and this is the largest colorless stone found in some time, and the largest overall since Labor Day of 2020 when a brown diamond twice its size was uncovered.
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125 carats worth of diamonds were registered at the park this year, which was the site of a volcanic event long ago that created the necessary conditions of heat, pressure, and elements to make the diamonds which people find today.
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