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

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!

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-117diamonds,0,7067987.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines | Official Crater of Diamonds State Park website


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$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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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.
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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
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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?
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