Lauren Moye, FISM NEWS
A California woman now possesses a 4.38 carat diamond after visiting an Arkansas park. The diamond is the largest one found since Oct. 2020 at Crater of Diamonds State Park according to a press release from Arkansas State Parks.
Noreen Wredberg is a retiree from Granite Bay who now travels with her husband, Michael. They frequently visit parks throughout America. When their travels took them close to Crater of Diamonds in Murfreesboro, AK, Noreen “knew she had to come.”
“I first saw the park featured on TV years ago,” Noreen explained to park staff. The park is the only diamond mine in the United States that allows the public to search for treasures.
Stacy Hurst, a secretary for Arkansas’s parks and tourism department, said, “It’s such a unique experience and visitors make lifetime memories, whether or not they find a diamond. Of course, finding a diamond adds to the experience!”
Noreen certainly made a lifetime experience. She found the diamond within an hour of entering the park on Sept. 23. However, Michael deserves some credit for suggesting that the couple walk through a field. When Noreen picked up the stone, she claims she was unaware of what it was. Instead, she picked it up because “it was clean and shiny.”
Park employees identified the stone as a yellow diamond. It was described as being “the size of a jellybean,” pear-shaped, and the color of lemonade. Noreen named her find “Lucy’s Diamond” after Michael’s cat. She explained, “The name is sentimental to us. Lucy is mostly gray but has slight tints of yellow in her fur, similar to the light yellow of my diamond.”
Now named “Lucy’s Diamond” after Michael’s cat, the value of the gem is still unknown. However, some experts suggest that a lemonade-colored diamond might be worth $3,500 per carat which would make Lucy’s Diamond worth more than $14,000.
Noreen said that she didn’t think she would find a diamond at the park that day, “let alone something that big.”
Visitors have found 258 diamonds during 2021 at Crater of Diamonds State Park with an average of 1-2 found each day.
While Lucy’s Diamond is the largest found so far in 2021, the largest Crater of Diamonds find happened in 1924. This notable white diamond is known as “Uncle Sam” and weighed 40.23 carats.