By Terry Karkos,Staff Writer

BETHEL – There was something for everybody at Saturday’s Western Maine Gem, Mineral and Jewelry Festival at SAD 44’s Crescent Park School, including fossilized dinosaur dung from the Jurassic Period.

But the 25-million-year-old dino doo-doo – known as coprolite – which was found in the Colorado Plateau in Utah, was more popular with children than adults, Dennis Gross said.

“I’ve been having a real good time with the coprolite,” he said, standing behind the showcase display of fossils, gems and rocks from his Bryant Pond business, Mineral Collector.

“I’ve been seeing people pick it up, then look at what it’s called, and put it down quick, then wipe their hands on their clothes,” he said, laughing.

More than 300 people wandered through the school’s gym during the first day of the two-day festival, examining hundreds of specimens being sold by 14 vendors from across the country.

“We had between 300 and 350 people come through the doors, which, for a sunny day, is pretty high for us,” Lorraine Tanguay of Albany Township said.

Tanguay is treasurer of the Oxford County Mineral and Gem Association, which hosted the 45th annual event.

“We usually get these numbers on rainy days. We’ve had quite a few kids, so it’s great to introduce kids to this, because it’s an educational experience,” Tanguay said.

It was that and more for 6-year-olds Caroline Finley and Olivia Voth, both of Bethel, and Finley’s dad, Kevin, who followed behind the duo.

“We’ve been studying dinosaurs,” Voth said.

Then, just as quickly, Caroline Finley turned to dad, put on one of those faces parents find hard to resist, and said, “Will you let us buy some stuff so we can have a party?”

Dad rolled his eyes.

“They love looking at the rocks and fossils, and they’ve found everything they like. On every table, they’ve found something,” Kevin Finley said.

The most interesting find at the festival for Joan O’Hara of Kennebunkport was a piece of morganite, a large crystal found in Newry. O’Hara and her husband, Desmond, purchased several stones at the festival, including a very clear quartz crystal.

Not every gemstone was local. Peggy Hanson’s opals came from Ethiopia and take special connections to obtain.

Her partner in the gem business, who is from Ethiopia, mines the gems, ships them to her using careful packaging, thus increasing the cost.

Ethiopian opals were discovered more than 200 years ago, yet no one could find the source until 1992 when the mine was discovered, Hanson said. Only Ethiopians are allowed to mine the precious gems.

Hanson’s Ethiopian stones range from $65 to more than $500.

Through her personal company, Eccentricities in Rensselaerville, N.Y., she sells them all over the world. Her next venture will be into Japan, yet Hanson attends the Bethel mineral festival every year.

Opals from this eastern African country are shiny and multicolored on the inside, and have a decomposing rhyolite casing, she said. A rainbow of colors sparkled from many different opals inside two display cases atop her showcase table.

But she keeps the most valuable stone close to her. Hanson estimates that the chalk opal she wears around her neck is worth $3,000.

“Since I’ve made this piece, women keep grabbing at my neck,” she said, smiling.

The coprolites might have been why Gross didn’t have the same experience, but, he said, he’d been pretty busy selling a lot of his rocks, which come from all over the world. Other vendors said they, too, had sold several specimens.

The show continues Sunday, operating from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. A field trip to Perham’s Tamminen Mine in Greenwood departs at 11 a.m., Tanguay said, but people wanting to take it should arrive by 10:45 a.m. Feldspar, quartz and tourmaline were mined there.

Writer Jessica Alaimo contributed to this story.