After Years of Searching, Man Finds Largest Diamond of the Year at Arkansas State Park

Tourism Arkansas

What's small, round, and the color of coffee? The largest diamond discovered at Crater of Diamonds State Park this year!

The Arkansas park revealed in a news release that after a decade of searching, Adam Hardin found what he was looking for on April 10: a 2.38-carat brown diamond.

Hardin, a frequent visitor to the Arkansas park, was wet-sifting soil from the search area's East Drain when he found the rare gem.

"It was right in the middle when I flipped my screen over," he recalled in a news release. "When I saw it, I said, 'Wow, that's a big diamond!'"

Arkansas State Parks

Hardin transported his find in a pill bottle to the park's Diamond Discovery Center, where staff registered it as a 2.38-carat brown diamond.

"Mr. Hardin's diamond is about the size of a pinto bean, with a coffee brown color, and a rounded shape," Park Interpreter Waymon Cox said in a statement. "It has a metallic shine typical of all diamonds found at the park, with a few inclusions and crevices running all along the surface."

The diamond is the largest found at the park since last September, when a visitor from California discovered a 4.38-carat yellow gem. Hardin's is the largest brown diamond since the 9.07-carat Kinard Friendship Diamond was discovered on Labor Day 2020.

WATCH: Visitor Finds 4.38-Carat Yellow Diamond at Arkansas State Park

Like many finders of large Crater diamonds, Hardin chose to name his gem. The moniker he picked for the brown diamond? Frankenstone.

"I thought of the name because it has a pretty and kind of not-so-pretty look to it," Hardin explained. "Us diamond miners call that 'character!'"

Congratulations, Adam!