At Arkansas's Craters of Diamonds National Park
, visitors can pay a $7 entrance fee, pick up a shovel, and try their hand at diamond prospecting. The rule is "seekers-keepers" and over the past three years annual visits have tripled to 170,000, and in 2007 visitors extracted more than 1,000 gems from the ground. Some visitors use a special screen called a seruca to clean and separate heavier diamonds from lighter fragments. Others just knelt down and squinted in the furrows for jewels. The 800-acre park offered hope, albeit a long shot, that almost anyone could make a fortune out of it. Unfortunately, this park can also be a temptation for mineralogical shenanigans.
Eric Black, a 33-year-old carpenter, has been drilling holes two or three times a year since his grandfather first took him there when he was a teenager. His efforts finally paid off in October 2007, when he discovered a 3.9-carat boulder, nearly as big as the Kahn Canary diamond that Hillary Clinton had borrowed for her Arkansas-born husband's presidential inauguration. It was a rare find, enough to attract national attention. According to reports, Blake discovered the elongated white diamond on a trail while he was tossing a 70-pound bucket of dirt and gravel with the intention of cleaning it up.
If it can be proven that the lucky stone came from Arkansas soil, it could be worth as much as $8,000. In the year since his discovery, collectors, park rangers and law enforcement officials began to wonder how Blake and his family were able to discover an unprecedented 32 diamonds in less than a week.
"We are concerned not only with the integrity of the park, but with the integrity of Arkansas," said park ranger Tom Stolarz, who caught a glimpse of the diamond as Blake prepared to leave the park. Although Stolarz is not a geologist, but he has worked at the park for 26 years and has handled more than 10,000 diamonds, paying special attention to large stones. Blake's rough stone seemed to Stolarz to be a diamond. But is it an American diamond?" The answer is more important than people think. Diamonds are nothing more than crystallized carbon that can now be produced economically in laboratories. But these diamonds fascinate people; the National Museum of Natural History’s diamond exhibit featuring the Hope Diamond is one of the Smithsonian’s most popular destinations. For many diamond buyers, history buffs and a quirky subculture of dedicated diamond hunters, provenance is everything.
Diamonds were discovered in Arkansas in August 1906, when a farmer named John Wesley Huddleston found one on his property. "gleaming pebbles". The following year, The *** described Diamond John's treasure in epic terms: "The story of the discovery of a diamond field in one of the poorest counties in Arkansas, which is not very wealthy, reads like one of Sinbad's adventures. Chapter. ”
More than 10,000 dreamers flocked to nearby Murfreesboro, filling the crumbling Conway Hotel and building between the town and diamond fields. A tent city. Life isn't easy, said Mike Howard of the Arkansas Geological Survey. "Many people came, few found," he said. Most diamonds disappeared within a few years. "Most diamonds in Arkansas then, as now, were under 10 cents, which is about 1/10th of a carat." . But in 1924, a lucky miner pulled a 40-carat monster from the ground. Named Uncle Sam, the diamond remains the largest diamond ever found in the United States and sparkles in every miner's eye.
A lot of interesting things have happened in diamonds over the past century. After failing to gain full control of the area in 1910, the London-based diamond group allegedly set up a sham operation to downplay the mine's potential and undermine production, according to a Justice Department investigation. In 1919, two rival processing plants were burned to ashes on the same January night, fueling rumors that someone was out to destroy coal mine profits. As smooth and round as a drop of glass, it is the hardest in the world. They come in three colors: white, yellow and brown. Except for the Panna Mine in India, there are few other large mines in the world whose stones are accepted by the locals in Arkansas. (Howard said the similarity between diamonds from the two sites is likely superficial, although no one has documented trace elements that could be used to fingerprint Arkansas diamonds.) If Blake's 3.9-carat diamond had been imported, the net price would not have been Over a few hundred dollars. The rest of his stones were much cheaper.
When park ranger Stolarz saw Blake's diamond, he suggested that Blake show it to Howard at the Arkansas Geological Survey. Howard was on vacation, but after getting the call about the big diamond, he made a special trip to the Little Rock office. But Blake, his fiancé and her daughter and sister drove back to Wisconsin and never showed up. Howard called Blake's cell phone again and again, to no avail.
A few days later, he arrived at Blake, who explained that he "had a flat tire and no time to get over," Howard recalled. "A few weeks later, photos of Blake's diamond appeared on eBay and on Blake's own website, Arkansas Diamond Jewelry, "When Blake's discovery arrives in the trailer for Murfreesboro Miners' Camp,
the park and campground are inhabited by a group of well-meaning diamond hunters, and there's a certain amount of jealousy. And very suspicious. "I was like 'Oh my God!'" said Denis Tyrell, 49, a licensed handyman who has made a living digging for diamonds for the past 18 months. "You don't just come here, pick a spot, find 40 diamonds and say, 'See you next year!'" It took Tyrrell 10 days to find his first diamond when he arrived at the park in June 2006. His best diamond price in 31 days was 38 diamonds, a record he set in October 2008.
Despite their suspicions, there was no evidence of any wrongdoing. Later, a fossil and mineral merchant named Wang Yinan discovered something strange. In September 2007, he purchased one of Blake's smaller diamonds for $200. In December last year, Wang Jianmin intended to do business with an Indian dealer named Malay Hirani. *** Asked Hirani to share a recent Kimberley Process certificate that would ensure his rough diamonds were not the so-called blood diamonds traded by warlords in Africa and would verify that Hirani had previously done business in the United States. By chance, Hirani copied the certificate for the king from an order that Hirani sent to Black. Wang simply assessed his potential business partner and decided to ask Blackhillani if ??he could be trusted. To his surprise, Black denied the connection: All our diamonds come from the United States, he said.
Wang had not thought much about the incident until March 2008. He was talking to Hirani about the origin of rough diamonds, and Wang mentioned Black's website. The merchant took one look and at once thought he recognized some of Blake's jewelry as his own. "I realized I had stumbled upon something relatively large," Wang said. Hirani shared his receipt, shipping confirmation number and photo with Wang, and the two later tracked down another source: a Belgian businessman named Philippe Klapholz. Wang Jianmin revealed the news on the website Fakeminerals under the pseudonym "Hal Gayot". sheds light on the alleged fraud.
If Black did plant foreign diamonds on Arkansas land, was that a crime? Pike County Sheriff Preston Glenn is investigating Blake and expects to complete his work in early 2009, but he said it would be up to prosecutors to decide whether to pursue charges, if any. Meanwhile, officials said Blake has agreed not to return to Crater of Diamonds National Park.
Black said he did nothing wrong but posted the wrong photos on his website. "There were a few diamonds in question, but no one could prove anything," he said.
On a Friday afternoon in August last year, diamond hunter Taylor finally got his own luc