Could Your Next Diamond Be Free?

Imagine walking along, looking down at the ground, and finding a 7 carat diamond. It seems pretty far fetched, right? But that’s exactly what happened to 14-year-old Kalel Lanford, just the other day. Of course, his odds of finding a diamond were slightly better than ours, because he was strolling through Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas.

Even still, the odds of finding a diamond are pretty slim. However Lady Luck was smiling down upon young Kalel, because he discovered a 7.44 carat diamond in a little more than 30 minutes. Talk about a major score!

Apparently Kalel was walking along the riverbank, when he spotted a shiny brown stone on the ground. According to this article on CNN, the rock was about the size of a pinto bean and he knew that it was something special.

So he called his dad over, and they decided to have somebody look at it. According to Craig Lanford, the stone was coffee colored and frosty, so they knew that it wasn’t just any old rock.

Playing Finders Keepers in the Park:

According to park officials, Kalel’s find is the seventh largest diamond to be discovered in Crater of Diamonds State Park. It’s also the largest brown diamond to be found there in forty years! Kalel has named his find the Superman Diamond, and is taking it home as a souvenir.

Crater of Diamonds Park in Arkansas opened in 1906. Since that time, more than 75,000 diamonds have been discovered there. The park has a “finders keepers” policy, which means that you get to keep any diamonds that you trip across. Which is pretty cool considering that the entry fee is only $10 and there have been some pretty large diamonds found there.

Here is a recent list provided by CNN:

• Dan Frederick and his daughter Lauren, after less than an hour in the park on their first visit, found a 2.03 carat diamond in October 2016.
• In June 2015, park visitor Bobbie Oskarson of Longmont, Colorado, discovered an icicle-shaped 8.52 carat diamond while digging around the Pig Pen, a 37-acre search field.
• Susie Clark, who is from Evening Shade, Arkansas, in April 2015 found a 3.69-carat white, teardrop-shaped diamond in a plowed field in the park. Clark named it the Hallelujah Diamond.
• Dean Filppula, an offshore steward from Shreveport, Louisiana, found a yellow 2.01-carat diamond in February 2015.

Cutting a 7 carat diamond:

You might be wondering what the process would be for cutting a 7-carat diamond. The first thing to realize is that yield is different than rough. In most instances, the yield from a seven-carat piece of diamond rough will be about half the original carat weight. And that is in the best of circumstances, meaning that the diamond rough is of the highest quality.

The reason why you’re allowed to keep the diamonds you find in Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas, is because the deposit does not contain diamonds of higher quality. They tend not to be the type of diamonds that come to mind when we think of engagement ring diamonds, or gem quality diamonds for jewelry.

Nevertheless, it’s still pretty cool to stumble across one! I’d love to have a 7.44 carat diamond sitting on my desk as a conversation piece! Wouldn’t you? And one that you happened to find when you were 14 years old? C’mon, that’s the experience of a lifetime!

Read the Full Article on CNN

Photo Credit: CNN