Diamonds may be a guy's best friend, too.
A New York man is making a living by literally scraping the streets of Midtown’s Diamond District for tiny chips and pieces of gems and gold, the New York Post reports.
Raffi Stepanian, 43, was first discovered on his hands and knees in the middle of a rainstorm, digging through the cracks in the sidewalk with tweezers and a butter knife.
According to the paper, Stepanian said that through six days he had collected enough gold for a profit of $819 on 47th Street. He first got the idea to mine the sidewalks after finding gold scraps on the floor of a diamond exchange.
He likened the findings to that of a mine, only one step better because his findings are already cut and manufactured. As a freelance diamond setter, Stepanian sifts through mud in search of tiny diamond and ruby chips, gold earring backs, white-gold industrial loops, watches, brooches and necklaces that have been dropped and forgotten.
