Man finds 2.38-carat diamond in Arkansas park
The stone, which Adam Hardin named ‘Frankenstone,’ is the largest diamond found in Arkansas’ Crater of Diamonds State Park so far this year
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A man who regularly visits an Arkansas state park went home with a diamond last month.
On April 10, Adam Hardin found a 2.38-carat diamond at the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro, according to a press release from Arkansas State Parks. Hardin’s diamond is the largest to have been found at the park so far this year.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Hardin has visited Crater of Diamonds State Park for more than a decade and has found "hundreds" of diamonds on his visits, the release said.
However, the diamond that Hardin found last month is his first diamond that weighs more than two carats.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Hardin found the diamond while he was wet-sifting soil in the Crater of Diamonds State Park’s search area.
"It was right in the middle when I flipped my screen over," Hardin said in the press release. "When I saw it, I said, ‘Wow, that’s a big diamond.’"
The park states that visitors who search for diamonds by wet-sifting use a screen to separate the gravel by size and wash the soil away.
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After he found the gem, Hardin took the diamond to the park’s Diamond Discovery Center, where his diamond was registered as a 2.38-carat brown diamond.
Adam Hardin found a 2.38-carat brown diamond at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas. (Arkansas State Parks)
"Mr. Hardin’s diamond is about the size of a pinto bean, with a coffee brown color and a rounded shape," Park Interpreter Waymon Cox said in the release. "It has a metallic shine typical of all diamonds found at the park, with a few inclusions and crevices running all along the surface."
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On his visits to Crater of Diamonds State Park over the last 10 years, Hardin has had some competition with another regular visitor to see who can find the biggest diamond, he told the park.
Hardin has visited Crater of Diamonds State Park for more than a decade and has found "hundreds" of diamonds on his visits. However, the gem he found last month is his first diamond that weighs more than two carats. (Arkansas State Parks)
"I found a big one, then he got a 1.79-carat, and we were joking about who would find the next big diamond and be ‘king of the mountain,’" Hardin said. "As soon as I found this one, I had a feeling I had him beat. Now he's trying to find a bigger one, but I'm planning on staying on top."
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Many people who find diamonds at the state park name their gems and Hardin is no exception, according to the press release. Hardin named his 2.38-carat diamond "Frankenstone."
"I thought of the name because it has a pretty and kind of not-so-pretty look to it," Hardin said in the release. "Us diamond miners call that 'character!'"
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Hardin told Arkansas State Parks that he plans to sell Frankenstone.
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So far in 2022, 260 diamonds have been found at the state park, according to the park.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Hardin’s is the largest diamond found this year. It is also the largest brown diamond found since 2020, when someone found a 9.07-carat diamond.