I saw a story about a very lucky family, who found a valuable diamond at the Craters of the Moon Diamond field in Arkansas. Are gem quality diamonds that common in Arkansas? Also, once you find one, how do you sell a rough diamond? Do you have to have it cut to realize the value of the stone?
Anybody ever dug for diamonds in Arkansas?
I did it once with my grandmother and little brother about 15 years ago. The diamond field is BIG. The day I was there it was also HOT like 130 degrees and very humid on the fields themselves because they are just plowed dark earth. The diamond fields are basically just these massive plowed fields that you can search in. They just roll on and on and you just walk until you can’t take it anymore and then start looking.
They have a park house with a little museum, a geologist on hand, and a place to buy tools like trowels and sifters. I don’t mean to make it sound bad. It is a good memory but boy was it HOT and dirty. There are many types of other rocks in the mix so you sift, pick, and stare and then sift again. If you are one of the hundred or so people that day that is convinced that you found a diamond, the geologist is right there to explain that it not.
People have found so rather large diamonds in the fields and thousands of smaller ones but the odds of a given person finding one are tiny. Even the African diamond miners spend a massive amount of time and energy to find a single good diamond.
Give it a try. You never know and, if you go in the middle of summer, you will have a new understanding of the word hot.
Your chances are that you’ll get dirty and find nothing. About like winning the lottery.
An interesting but self serving site http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:X-3ROpUc2O0J:www.craterofdiamondsstatepark.com/digging-for-diamonds/+"strawn+wagner+diamond"&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
Selling a rough diamond isn’t very straightforward. You’re much better off getting it cut first, at a place like this, for example.
Here’s some pictures of rough diamonds, so you know what to look for!
NIL, NADA, ZIP !
You can have a better probability of finding RUBIES (Garnets) in one of the Ruby mines near Franklin NC. Plus You Get To Play In The MUD!
Buy a bucket of mud or dig your own. Wash the stones and gravel in runnig stream water, sort the remains for RUBIES!
More fun than a dirty, dusty field.
Ohhhh
Does anyone know where you can search through the mud with the vague hope of finding something valuable in California? That sounds like a fun way to hang out with friends and get some exersize on a weekend.
To clarify, you can potentially find both rubies and garnets in North Carolina. The garnets are relatively common; when I went there many years ago, I got about a half-dozen teeny-tiny low-quality ones from a single bucketful (at least, I think it was a single bucket… Like I said, it was many years ago). The rubies are both more valuable and far rarer. Although both rubies and garnets are clear reddish stones, they’re not the same thing, and the staff will be able to tell you which are which.
Also, don’t expect to turn a profit from any of these sorts of places. It’s fun for a tourist, and there’s a chance of hitting it big, but if it were economical to get the gems out, the owners would be doing it themselves instead of charging tourists for the privelidge.
You could always pan for gold. You probably won’t get any actual gold, but you might find garnets!
I just got back from the Crater of Diamonds. The probablility of finding a diamond is less than a percent if you work hard all day. Its worth a day, but go to Hot Springs the next day to find quartz. It is very satisfying to dig up a beautiful crystal even if it is worthless. It is especially nice after diging in the dirt to find nothing the day before. Incidently, Crater of Diamonds is in a dry county so if you plan on spending the night go “prepared”.