US gem hunter hails ‘American dream’ after finding ‘million-dollar diamond’
A gem hunter in the US has dug up a six-carat diamond which he claims he has been told could be worth up to a million dollars (£750,000).
Navy reservist Jack Pearadin and his friend shovelled the diamond from a field in Arkansas where he has found more than 300 gems so far.
Mr Pearadin claims collectors have told him it could be worth a million dollars. At least one experienced appraiser told the Associated Press that a diamond of such size and quality could be worth a quarter of that, but it is still an impressive find.
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” he said as he livestreamed the discovery on TikTok.
“Holy crap, we got a big one!” he yelled after rinsing gravel from a bucket and then flipping the pile on to a table to expose the shiny facets of a 6.03-carat diamond.
Roughly the size of a fingernail, it is the largest diamond found this year at Crater of Diamonds State Park. More than 37,000 diamonds have been discovered since the former open-pit mine became part of a state park in 1972.
The park charges a 15-dollar (£11) entry fee to fill a five-gallon bucket with rocks, and people can keep any gemstones they find. Most are small and worth maybe a few hundred dollars.
The largest diamond unearthed in the US, a 40.23-carat stone called the Uncle Sam, was found at the park in 1924.
Mr Pearadin is the first to admit his diamond-hunting hobby has not paid off, despite sifting rocks for more than a dozen years.
Originally from Missouri, he has been trying his luck at the park since 2013, even moving to nearby Murfreesboro to support his hobby. “I love it that much,” he told the Associated Press. He has sold most of his diamonds online.
Most of the 400 to 800 diamonds found at the park annually weigh about a quarter of a carat, according to park interpreter Sarah Bivens, but there have been some bigger ones, said assistant superintendent Waymon Cox. In 2020 a nine-carat diamond was found by an Arkansas bank manager, and in 2024 a French man unearthed a seven-carat stone.
Nathan Renfro, senior manager at the Gemological Institute of America, said the US has only two known primary deposits of diamonds: Crater of Diamonds and Colorado’s Kelsey Lake, where the land was reclaimed after a commercial mining operation went out of business years ago.
That means the Arkansas park is one of the only places in the world where anyone can hunt for diamonds and take their finds away.
“It’s a pretty remarkable operation that that’s available to the public,” Mr Renfro said. “Most diamond mines are super high security.”
A typical .17-carat diamond from the park can sell for around 700 dollars, said certified gem appraiser Laura Stanley in Little Rock, but a high-quality six-carat yellow diamond can sell for about 250,000 dollars, she added, partly because of their origin.
“They are their own entity,” Ms Stanley said. “It’s the only place in America where you can go find your own diamond and you can’t compare that to a diamond from anywhere else.”
The Uncle Sam crystal was cut and polished into a 12.42-carat diamond gifted to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, where it’s on view in the Great American Diamonds exhibit.
Mr Pearadin named his latest and biggest find the American Dream.
“It’s just this massive, gorgeous yellow diamond,” he said.
He plans to split the profits with fellow gem hunter Michael Schumacher, who helped dig the gravel that produced the stone, and open his own crystal mine.
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