About Us

The Dirty Diamond Diggers began with a streak of increasingly unbelievable luck:

Not long ago, Chad Bartlett, the father of an upstate New York family, started to build a pole barn on his land. He settled into the cab of his excavator and began to level some ground, but soon found large pieces of limestone beneath the surface. It made for tough digging, but Chad saw in them a business opportunity: Bring them up, stencil and sandblast them to customers’ specifications, and deliver them as yard signs.

As Chad spread the word about the limestone and his new side business, a family friend said that, given the limestone, Chad might find Herkimer diamonds if he kept digging. At first, Chad was unmoved, but another friend of his resolved to search for the diamonds.

Sure enough, Chad’s friend found some small quartz crystals in the overturned soil. Not knowing what to make of it, Chad contacted a geologist, who said that the crystals were likely deposited by glaciers, and that finding anything more was unlikely.

However, the geologist shared some parting advice: If one is looking for crystals on the surface, they should wait until it rains—the crystals stand out better that way.

One night after a day of rain, Chad and his crystal-hunting friend walked to the construction site with flashlights. The pale arcs of light they cast seemed to dance upon the saturated ground, glinting off of countless small crystals.  Chad and his friend merely had to kneel down and pick the crystals up, and they began to wonder: Perhaps these were the indicator of something bigger?

In the following days, with excavator, shovel, and prybar, Chad and his friend moved soil and stone in search of more Herkimer diamonds. Their efforts were rewarded when they discovered their first pocket of Herkimer diamonds, which yielded far larger crystals than they had found before.

The feeling any rockhound would know well took hold as Chad and his friend dug further, finding multiple pockets of Herkimer diamonds. Chad’s partner, Maggie, their two young sons, and more family and friends joined in the effort. They delighted in the search together, finding Herkimer diamonds of many colors and sizes, from small water-clear crystals, to large, complex, multicolored ones.

Unsure of what to do next, Chad and Maggie reached out to the mineral prospecting community online, learning more about geology, prospecting techniques, and the unique properties of (and uses for) Herkimer diamonds. They also found a great many people just as passionate about Herkimer diamonds and mineral prospecting as they were becoming.

Chad shared their experiences in short videos on his Facebook profile and, as of the time of this writing, those videos have received over 2 million views. He soon had the attention of enthusiastic buyers of Herkimer diamonds, among them collectors, jewelry-makers, and practitioners of spiritual healing. Fellow mineral prospectors, too, were interested: Chad and Maggie have welcomed visitors from as far away as Japan for supervised digs.  

What began as a project to house yard equipment and free up some garage space has become a new way of life for Chad, Maggie, their family, and their friends. Now, as the Dirty Diamond Diggers, they work to provide high-quality Herkimer diamonds to interested buyers, a highly productive mining experience for visitors, and a community made by and for mineral prospecting enthusiasts.

If you are reading this, you might just be a Dirty Diamond Digger, too! Be sure to join our group on Facebook to see videos and photos from our digs and to stay in touch with your fellow rockhounds.

Stay safe and have fun on your next dig, and remember:
“If You Ain’t Dirty, You Ain’t Digging!”