Yes, hard work and luck digging in an open field where they turn over the dirt a few times a day. Most have no clue what they are looking for even when they find something. I sure didn't!
Posted on 04/11/2014 6:22:17 PM PDT by SMGFan
First of all, before we get into money talk, color me flabbergasted by the fact that there’s a park where apparently you can find free gems, take them home at your leisure and then sell them. Crater of Diamonds State Park exists, and it’s made one 14-year-old girl way richer than most kids her age.
(Excerpt) Read more at consumerist.com ...
Arkansas right?
She now has a college fund if she didn’t already
I’ve been there once. It’s a plowed field. You get a bucket and go scoop up some dirt and start looking for rough diamonds. There’s a little movie you can watch that will show you what a rough diamond looks like. There are people who go there every day.
Yes, hard work and luck digging in an open field where they turn over the dirt a few times a day. Most have no clue what they are looking for even when they find something. I sure didn't!
Sierra Leone. Now that’s the third world.
We at least had running water although it had to be boiled before consuming. I still managed to get typhoid though. I was a kid tho, hard to keep a kid from sucking the bathcloth and such. At least we had flush water seal potties. This was 45yrs ago though. The jungle behind our building is now a 20 story building now. That bit of real estate has really ‘improved’ since the days of free running jungle mammals and jungle birds.
I’ve always wanted multicolor bling, maybe I’ll have to talk hubby into a roadtrip.
Y’know. My kid brother’s a real live geologist. Maybe I need to take HIM on a roadtrip and leave hubby at home with the kids...
Those same people usually take dirt home and shift through it. You would be surprised how many small diamonds people will find doing that. My aunt and a friend I know have a large collection of uncut diamonds.
Great idea!
‘Chocolate’ diamonds for me, Please! :)
IRS got 75% of it.
I didn’t know you could take the dirt home with you.
They say the best time to look is right after it’s been plowed and rain has fallen and the sun has come back out. Supposedly they’ll twinkle in the sunlight.
The IRS will figure out a way to confiscate it.
Some of them are “seeded.” The Franklin, NC area is somewhat famous for naturally occurring sapphires, rubies and emeralds, with “gem mines’ all around, but there just aren’t enough of them in the buckets of dirt to keep the tourists entertained sufficiently to keep coming back. So, they enhance the dirt with some they’ve bought. Nothing huge, just barely large enough to polish or perhaps have cut. If a patron ever finds a really noteworthy gem, rest assured it wasn’t seeded because they’re just not going to spend that kind of money.
I worked summers in the vicinity while in college. I do recall that you should be careful around known veins with sapphire, the soil can be toxic with long term exposure due to the cyanide present in the peculiar yellowish soil. Cyan, blue, sapphire. Fair amount of fool’s gold around those places too. This was a private site rather than commercial, back off the beaten path on the property of an old resort. Only guests and employees were allowed back there.
We have that place on our bucket list.
No. But the B.L.M. will be arriving to run the place as soon as it gets things sorted out in Nevada.
Free if you round down from $8.
From Crater of Diamonds State Park:
Fees to search for Diamonds
Adults: $8
Children (ages 6-12): $5
Children under 6 years old: FREE
I believe that to be the only publicly-accessible place on Earth where you can dig up a diamond and keep it.
My daughter, son and son in law went to Arkansas to the diamond mine....its a large open field of dirt and after the rains mud. You can rent what is needed (cheap) keep whatever you find and there are things other than diamonds that have been found...wear old clothes, boots if it muddy and dig all you want. They have a gemologist to check out what you have and tell you if you have anything of value. You keep all or sometimes someone will buy from you at the park...locals have set ups. but they have to be small....it was fun but we were unlucky enough to have to dig in mud. Dry county, 50 miles round trip for son to get some beer. The state is a lot of nothing. Daughter wondered why it wasn’t the suicide cap. of the country..
You and your family really need to get out more often.
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