Jack Pearadin readily acknowledges that his long-running passion for searching for diamonds has brought him little financial reward, even after more than 12 years of digging through gravel and soil.
That changed earlier this year when the Navy reservist and a friend uncovered a six-carat diamond in an Arkansas field. Pearadin says he has discovered more than 300 gems at the site.
The latest stone, however, stands apart from everything else he has found. Pearadin said collectors have suggested the diamond could command as much as $1 million.
An experienced appraiser who spoke with The Associated Press offered a more conservative estimate, saying a diamond of that size and quality might be worth roughly $250,000 — still an extraordinary payoff for a day of digging.
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Pearadin shouted while livestreaming the moment on TikTok. After washing gravel from a bucket, he tipped the contents onto a table and spotted the bright facets of a 6.03-carat diamond. “Holy crap, we got a big one!” he exclaimed.
The stone is approximately the size of a fingernail and is the largest diamond discovered at Crater of Diamonds State Park so far this year.
Since the former open-pit mine became a state park in 1972, visitors have found more than 37,000 diamonds there.
The largest diamond found at the park, ‘Uncle Sam,’ weighed 40 carats
For a $15 admission fee, visitors may search through the park’s terrain with a five-gallon bucket of rocks — and they are allowed to keep any gemstones they uncover.
Most of those discoveries are small, with typical stones valued at no more than a few hundred dollars.
The park’s most famous discovery remains the 40.23-carat Uncle Sam, found in 1924 and recognized as the largest diamond ever unearthed in the United States.
Pearadin, who grew up in Missouri, first began searching the park in 2013. His enthusiasm eventually led him to move to nearby Murfreesboro so he could spend more time pursuing the hobby. “I love it that much,” he told The Associated Press. He has sold most of his finds online.
Sarah Bivens, a park interpreter, said between 400 and 800 diamonds are typically found at the site each year. Most weigh around one-quarter of a carat.
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Still, larger discoveries occasionally make headlines. Park assistant superintendent Waymon Cox noted that an Arkansas bank manager found a nine-carat diamond in 2020, while a French visitor unearthed a seven-carat stone in 2024.
Diamonds are found in few places in the US
Diamonds form far beneath Earth’s surface in extreme heat and pressure. Volcanic activity then drives them upward, after which natural forces such as water and wind spread the stones across the surrounding landscape.
Unlike the polished gems sold by jewelry retailers, these naturally found diamonds are often cloudy and irregularly shaped. Nathan Renfro, a senior manager at the Gemological Institute of America, said cutting and polishing can reduce a rough diamond’s weight by about 25%.
Renfro said the United States has only two known primary diamond deposits — locations where columns of once-molten volcanic rock reached the surface. One is Crater of Diamonds; the other is Colorado’s Kelsey Lake, where the property was reclaimed after a commercial mining venture shut down.
That makes the Arkansas park one of the rare places worldwide where the public can search for diamonds and legally take home whatever they find.
“It’s a pretty remarkable operation that that’s available to the public,” Renfro said. “Most diamond mines are super high security.”
So can Jack finally get a big payday?
Laura Stanley, a certified gem appraiser in Little Rock, said a typical 0.17-carat diamond from the park may sell for about $700.
A six-carat yellow diamond in excellent condition could fetch approximately $250,000, Stanley said, with its unique Arkansas origin adding to its appeal and value.
“They are their own entity,” 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.
Pearadin named his latest and biggest find the “American Dream.”
“It’s just this massive, gorgeous yellow diamond,” Pearadin said. He plans to split the profits with fellow gem hunter Michael Schumacher of Wisconsin, who helped fill the bucket that held the stone, and open his own crystal mine.