Day Tripper Unearths Nine Carat Diamond

(IDEX Online) - Lucky Kevin Kinard unearthed a diamond weighing over nine carats on a day trip to a park in Arkansas, USA.

He was sifting at the Crater of Diamonds State Park, near Murfreesboro, the world's only dig-your-own-diamond attraction, situated on a disused mine.

The 9.07-ct stone found by Kevin, 33, is the second largest since the park opened for amateur diamond hunters in 1972. The record is held by the 16.37-carat white Amarillo Starlight, discovered in August 1975.

Kevin, a regular visitor and a bank branch manager, paid the $10 entrance fee and gets to keep the diamond he found, under standard park rules.

"It kind of looked interesting and shiny," he said. "Sso I put it in my bag and kept searching. I just thought it might've been glass."

Back in 1924, when the site was operated as a commercial mine, it yielded the USA's biggest ever diamond, a 40.23-ct white diamond with a pink cast.  It was later cut into a 12.42-carat emerald shape and purchased by a private collector for $150,000 in 1971.