A regular visitor to an Arkansas diamond mine made his most significant find yet: A brown diamond weighing in at more than 2 carats.
Arkansas resident Adam Hardin, who has frequented Arkansas’ Crater of Diamonds State Park for the past decade, discovered the largest diamond found at the park so far this year on April 10.
Hardin found the 2.38-carat brown diamond while wet-sifting soil from the East Drain of the park’s 37.5-acre search area. Many visitors to Crater of Diamonds — the only state park in the U.S. with a diamond mine open to the public — wet sift using screen sets. They wash away soil, separating the gravel by size and sending heavier material to the screen’s bottom.
“It was right in the middle when I flipped my screen over,” Hardin said in a statement released by the park. “When I saw it, I said, ‘Wow, that’s a big diamond!’”
The Murfreesboro Advertising & Tourism Commission shared some photos of the find along with information about the park on Facebook.
“Since April 10, seven (7) diamonds weighing a total of 49 points have been found at the park,” Murfreesboro Advertising & Tourism Commission wrote.
“Mr. Hardin’s diamond is about the size of a pinto bean, with a coffee brown color and a rounded shape,” Park Interpreter Waymon Cox said in the park’s statement. “It has a metallic shine typical of all diamonds found at the park, with a few inclusions and crevices running all along the surface.”
Hardin named the diamond “Frankenstone,” following the custom of naming large Crater diamonds. He said the “pretty and kind of not-so-pretty” stone has character.
The diamond is the largest found at the park since California resident Noreen Wredberg unearthed a 4.38-carat yellow gem last September. It is the largest brown diamond discovered since the 9.07-carat Kinard Friendship Diamond was found on Labor Day 2020. To date, 260 diamonds, weighing more than 44 carats, have been registered at the park this year. Visitors find an average of one to two diamonds daily.
“One of the other guys and I have been going back and forth, seeing who can find the biggest diamond,” said Hardin, who plans to sell the stone. “I found a big one, then he got a 1.79-carat, and we were joking about who would find the next big diamond and be ‘king of the mountain.’ As soon as I found this one, I had a feeling I had him beat. Now he’s trying to find a bigger one, but I’m planning on staying on top!”
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