Digging for Diamonds: For $6, it’s Finders Keepers!

Posted by Alex in Everything Else, Travel & Places on November 13, 2006 at 11:45 pm


Whenever Bob Wehle could get away, he would go to the Crater of Diamonds in Arkansas, plunk down $6, and dig for diamonds.

His friends razzed him. His wife rolled her eyes. Until, that is, he found a 5.47-carat canary yellow gem of unusual clarity he named the Sunshine Diamond.

"My wife, she’s OK with this now," Wehle, 36, said with a chuckle. "My friends, they’re not laughing at me anymore."

The discovery of Sunshine was another glittering chapter in the legend of Arkansas’ Crater of Diamonds State Park, one of the more unusual public attractions in America.

For a $6 fee, visitors can scour the mouth of an ancient volcano in search of a priceless stone. Most days one or two get lucky, as a 9-year-old from Illinois did this spring when she scooped up a clear white diamond with her toy shovel and named it Sparkles. The 50,000 people who visit each year find ground rules that are tantalizingly simple: finders keepers.

It’s a fantastic story of a public garden that has yielded 75,000 diamonds, and all you have to do is pay the fee and start digging!

Link | Official Crater of Diamonds State Park website

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COMMENT

8 comments to "Digging for Diamonds: For $6, it’s Finders Keepers!"

  1. Eugene
    November 14th, 2006 at 2:17 am

    I heard about twenty years ago, those were all seeded there just to maintain the tourism.
    Seriously, that place has been there for years, back when the Ozarks was still real hillbilly country.

  2. Natalie
    November 14th, 2006 at 2:26 am

    My parents visited there (and we are all native Arkansans) just a few months before this diamond was found. I can’t imagine that they “seed” the diamonds. It’s not like people find them there very often, if at all.

  3. Natalie
    November 14th, 2006 at 2:28 am

    OH, and one more thing, that park is not even in the Ozarks. It’s more to the south.

  4. Nora
    November 14th, 2006 at 10:26 am

    Theres a place like this near where my parents live. They thought it would be neat to go dig up diamonds for the day. However when they went to see what the fee was they were in for a shock. You have to sign up for a $400 membership that runs for several months first. Who needs diamonds, when you can scam the public?

  5. Denita TwoDragons
    November 14th, 2006 at 12:00 pm

    When I was 5 or 6 we went to Crater of Diamonds on the way back from my Grandfather’s funeral. Found a couple small industrial-grade diamonds that I promptly lost later. (What can I say, I didn’t understand their worth at the time…) But it gets HOT out there in the Summer…

    –TwoDragons

  6. dead_red_eyes
    November 14th, 2006 at 12:52 pm

    They don’t seed the diamonds, and it’s not in the Ozarks. I’ve been there twice, and it was years (15+)ago when I lived in Arkansas. It’s a really cool place.

  7. Jerry
    July 8th, 2007 at 11:02 pm

    20 years ago? People have been pulling diamonds out of that place for almost a century now. Not to mention it would have cost a fortune a seed a field with some of the enormous diamonds that have been found there. Crater of Diamonds is a great place. I’ve never found much of anything other than a lot of Jasper and Volcanic Ash. But I have had some fun times and good exercise in a beautiful outdoor area, not to mention that it is very inspiring if you are there and hear that siren blare. The last time I was there someone found a diamond weighing in at 219 carats (This was at the end of June this year). Imagine that. The thing must have been the size of your fist.

  8. Ajan
    July 26th, 2008 at 10:57 am

    $400?? Wow! That’s a lot of money, I knew that there was some way to get money from this diamond field… $400?? hmm… 16,500 Rs. in Indian Currency…brr… thats freaky now..depends on the luck


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