Best Non-MD Finds 2023 - Raw American Diamond from Diamond State Park

[Knight_of_Excalibur_II]

Hello everyone,

It just occurred to me that I could post this non-MD find, since the forum covers more than MD. Thought I would share this as I consider it one of my best finds, even though it's not the most valuable. This was a bucket list find for me, as I explicitly set out to find it solo, after my father and I visited Diamond State Park 10 years earlier with no success. The trip that I found it, I spent 11 days at the park digging and prospecting. I processed ~50 5-gallon buckets of dirt and clay to find it, and almost threw out the concentrates it was in before I did (long story). If you have any questions about the park, or my experience, feel free to ask! I feel like if I write out everything here, it would be too messy. I learned a lot about prospecting there, and met a lot of good people as well as bad, of all walks of life, from all over the world. If you are into prospecting, then you should know that Diamond State Park is one of the most difficult areas to prospect, due to the tough Lamproite, thick / mucky volcanic clay, and it's popularity. I did a lot of research, and prep work before I started my solo hunt - highly recommend getting as physically fit as you can if you are serious about finding a diamond, it's like working a construction job. The park has been hunted heavily for decades; it gets about ~500 visitors a day on a slow day, and up to ~2,000 on a busy day. Between all those people, roughly 2-3 diamonds are found per day on average, half of which are likely found by seasoned prospectors. The typical diamonds found there are very small, about the size of a match head (2-3 points, with 100 points in a carat), but big ones are occasionally found as well, with notable finds being once or twice a year. That being said, some life changing finds are still out there, I'm sure! I'm honored and incredibly lucky to be a part of the park's and America's diamond prospecting history! Some people visit this park for years without finding a diamond. For me, the value of this gem is in it's story, the symbolism, and crystallization of my efforts to find it. Without further ado:

Here's a pic of it under the park microscope:

And the tag I received for it after:

 

[Gare]

Nice find. How much is that diamond worth now ?

 

[Knight_of_Excalibur_II]

Nice find. How much is that diamond worth now ?

Last I heard, when I was at the park 2 years ago, diamonds from the area were going for about $50 per point, so $150 thereabouts. Probably a little more now though due to inflation, and diamonds becoming scarcer there. There hasn't been a major field dig / plow in a while now. Of course, it also depends on the type of diamond and the 3 C's but my find is the most common type of diamond from the park. Canary yellows can fetch anywhere from 4x to 20x the nominal value of mine.

 

[Trezurehunter]

Very nice, that is one place I'd like to go. We were supposed to go there roughly 10 years ago on our way from Arkansas to Oklahoma, but a tornado changed our plans.

 

[Knight_of_Excalibur_II]

Very nice, that is one place I'd like to go. We were supposed to go there roughly 10 years ago on our way from Arkansas to Oklahoma, but a tornado changed our plans.

If you do go, try to target a time of year that isn't too hot or cold. The first time I went (with my father in the middle of summer), the heat was unbearable, which made it a lot less fun. The second time I went was in the middle of winter. The cold was a tad annoying but much more preferable. The weather would dip below freezing at night, and the high throughout the day would be like 40-50 degrees Fahrenheit (cold for a Floridian). I remember going to the park in nothing but a t-shirt and jeans, because the physical exertion of mining would keep me just warm enough, before the sun would peek through. I'd recommend going just before winter, or during rainy season.

For supplies, I brought:

1. Jeweler's loope
2. Black flash light (for home searching, some diamonds there are fluorescent)
3. Diamond tester (for home searching)
4. Classifiers / saruca
5. Trowel (for getting centers of flips)
6. Cookie sheet (for home searching)
7. Amphibious boots
8. Rain jacket / rain pants cover (the park is very muddy, so I recommend getting these, unless you have a pair of clothes you don't mind ruining)
9. Large latex gloves (when you are wet gem sieving, water in the troughs is spring water and can be much colder)

These are other supplies that are very useful, but you can also buy these from a supply store that's very close to the park:

1. Large wagon (needs to be durable / hold all of your prospecting supplies); I recommend a gorilla cart.
2. 5-gallon buckets
3. Shovel
4. Probe (optional, a lot of seasoned prospectors use these to look for crunchy gravel underground, but it's not strictly necessary)

Some important notes:

Overall, if you've prospected gold a lot, you will probably do decently well at the park, the same physics apply to diamonds, especially since diamonds are hydrophobic.

The park does not allow any externally powered (gas, electric, solar, etc.) mining equipment, everything must be analog and hand-crank / person powered. This also includes flashlights, etc. They look down on the use of jeweler's loopes that have lights, but as long as you don't use them with reckless abandon at the park, you probably won't run into any trouble. Phones are ok.

The park hours are 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, but the mining area closes an hour early, and they usually expect people out ~30 min before closing the area, so you have ~ 8:00 AM to 3:30 PM to hunt maximally. You usually have to clean your equipment before you leave, unless you want dirt in your car, so prepare an extra 30 minute window before then if necessary - they have a cleaning station with hoses there for your convenience, but lines can form. When you sieve the gravel, you get concentrated gravel, or "concentrates." The park allows you to take home 1 5-gallon bucket of concentrates home with you to search at your own leisure, they do not allow unprocessed dirt, gravel, clay, etc. to leave the park. Most people find their diamonds from the park in the concentrates they take home, like I did.

On that topic, most people, when wet sifting for diamonds, have little to no idea what they are looking for. When the gravel is wet, it's very difficult to tell diamonds apart from the other minerals to the untrained eye, because all the minerals are shiny (only exception is when the diamonds are big, and very distinct in color / appearance, which is a tiny subset of diamonds at the park). Consequently, a good number of people may toss diamonds out in their tailings. I met a guy at the park that said he found a 1-carat diamond in a re-flip of a guy's tailings after the guy left (poor guy lol)-- he showed me it too. The vast majority of diamonds in the park are found in the concentrates that people take home. Finding diamonds is tough, and it's a combination of technique, volume of gravel processed, etc. Waiting for gravel to dry is inefficient. To make the most out of the day, I would flip sifted gravel, use the trowel to get the centers of the flips, and dump the centers in the concentrates buckets without looking, unless there's an obvious diamond at the top. Sometimes, at the end of the day, if I had enough time, I would re-flip the concentrates to reduce the volume. I would then take the concentrates home, spread them out on a cookie sheet, and bake them until they are dry. When the gravel is dry, other minerals will look chalky and lose their luster, like quartz and barite, whereas the diamonds will still look as shiny and lustrous as when they were wet. This makes them much easier to identify / spot.

I would go through the concentrates with the loope or a magnifying glass with a spoon and look for anything that sticks out, to set aside later and test. When you spot a diamond with this method, there will be little to no doubt that you've found one in your head, as it will look nothing else like the surrounding minerals or anything else you've found. You can always take what you find, and get it validated at the visitor center of the park during park hours, and they can tell you what you've found if you're uncertain, or give you a certificate if it is an authentic diamond from the park.

Also important, some basic etiquette:

1. If you see someone working a hole, do not prospect it, unless you are certain they are no longer working it (i.e. they have left to go home, or they moved on to a new location). No one, aside from the park, "owns" a hole, but it is very rude to intrude on someone's progress while they are still working on it. I've seen this happen a few times to others.
2. If you see prospecting gear left at the pavilion (where the sieving troughs are), do not touch them / use them. If it is still there by closing, or has been left there for multiple days, notify the park rangers, so they can put it in lost and found. For that reason, it's also a good idea to put your name and contact info on your gear, just in case it gets lost. Typically, people will take wagons with them, and dump their prospecting gear off on a spot / seat near the troughs to reserve a spot, and then take their buckets with them to go dig gravel and process them when they come back with them. One day, when I did this, I left my saruca, classifiers, and trowel by a seat to make more room for my buckets when I dug gravel. When I went out to get gravel, and came back, I found that my gear was being used by complete strangers without permission. Gear at the park isn't free, it can be bought or rented, and bought gear isn't cheap-- I'm sure they were aware of this. Understandably, I was upset, and politely asked for my gear back and moved to a new location to avoid a repeat of the same issue. Unfortunately, this happened to me again shortly after with a different family on the same day, so I was pretty angry and didn't want to cause a scene, since there were kids there, and decided to call it a day early. I almost threw out the concentrates that day, but decided not to last minute, and that is when I found my diamond ironically. Thus, it is best to go with a buddy or family, that can watch your gear, while you go out to get gravel.

Sorry for the long essay response, I just figure this info would come in handy to you, should you choose to go. The above gear/ advice is for if you are serious / semi-serious about results from the park. If you are there just to check it out / chill, that's fine too, you don't necessarily need a lot to do that, there's a water park nearby, and you can surface hunt as well!

See if you can spot the diamond below, this is the same diamond above, which I found after drying the gravel in the cookie sheet: