BETHEL — Members of the Oxford County Mineral and Gem Association will host the 49th annual Western Maine Gem, Mineral and Jewelry show this weekend at SAD 44’s Telstar Regional High School on Route 26.

Show Chairman Hugh Chapman of Gilead said early Wednesday evening that he’s expecting 13 vendors from Maine, one from Ohio and another from New York to attend the show from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, July 10, and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday.

Admission for adults and children aged 12 and over is $2 each. Children under 12 get in free.

The show will feature gold panning and lapidary demonstrations, museum-quality displays, hourly door prizes, gems, minerals, crystals, fossils, jewelry, books and magazines, and more.

Chapman said some vendors will have specimens from around the world.

“A lot of them go out of the country to different places like Brazil and Peru and buy, so they’ll have stuff that actually comes from all over the world,” he said.

Of the Maine vendors, half are from the local area, while others are from the coast and central Maine.

New this year are no field trips to local mines.

“We canceled them because there was not as many people going on them in past years, and a lot of mines are becoming privately owned by two or three people who are buying them up, and so liability becomes an issue, so we decided not to have them,” Chapman said.

This year’s grand door prize drawing is a morganite necklace donated by Norman Davis of Mountain Minerals of Newry. The stone is a piece from “The Rose of Maine,” an exceptionally large 30 centimeters wide pinkish crystal of gem quality morganite beryl from the Bennett Quarry in Buckfield, according to an association report.

Lunch both days will be available for purchase from the Gilead Fire Department.

For more information, call Chapman at 836-2987.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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