A Tennessee woman whose doubting husband predicted she wouldn’t have any luck gem hunting at Arkansas’ Crater of Diamonds State Park made a sparkling discovery: a 1.3-carat diamond. Can you imagine being so lucky?

Melissa Lacey of Knoxville said when interviewed “I wasn’t expecting to find anything and was just picking up pretty rocks,”. Yes but this park has a history of good finds doesn’t it?

When she first came upon the diamond in the rough, she thought the light yellow diamond was “a piece of dirty quartz.” After it was identified by park staff, Lacey said she couldn’t wait to show it to her husband. She probably showed it to her husband with a big “So there!” since he’d been negative about the possibility of her finding anything in the State park in the first place.

The diamond that Lacey found was the size of a piece of candy corn. Hers however was not the largest diamond to have been found on the grounds, no, the largest diamond ever discovered in the U.S. was unearthed at the state park in 1924. Named the Uncle Sam, the white diamond weighed 40.23 carats. Now that’s a huge gem!

Lacey found her diamond in soil from the freshly dug trench that was recently opened to the public. The soil from that trench has been spread out over parts of the diamond field.

The Crater of Diamonds State Park is the world’s only publicly operated diamond site where the public is allowed to search and keep any gems found, regardless of their value.

A 1.22-carat diamond found last year was estimated to be worth $1,000 uncut. The value could be increased depending on the way the diamond cut and the quality of the stone.

I don’t know about you, but I’m heading to Diamonds State Park, ARK sometime in the near future. I’m a former jeweler and I didn’t know about the Diamonds State Park or that there was even such a thing as a publicly operated diamond site. Now I do and so do you!

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