Dusting off for the big show

RV invasion: Recreational vehicles dominate the queue heading into Quartzsite, where their occupants will peruse gem, bead and mineral booths and maybe catch some camel races and do some square dancing.

J-Me Lynn, center, a regular at the Quartzsite shows, features glass, antique and precious beads along with jewelry at her booth.

It has no glitz or glitter, but little old Quartzsite's allure is irresistible to gem and mineral dealers heading here

QUARTZSITE - Disregard the construction along Interstate 10. Big-top tents and roped-off parking lots don't signify the start of the Tucson Gem and Mineral Shows. The yearly cavalcade of dazzling rocks and other extravagances begins 244 miles northwest.

This place barely registers as a hamlet between February and December, but in January, it bulges to become the state's second-largest metropolitan area when more than a million people -1.8 million, according to the Quartzsite mayor - pull up in recreational vehicles. They're snowbirds coming to see old friends and browse the sprawling swap meets, where some of the country's top bead, gem and mineral dealers sit beside vendors who are pitching love, happiness and hot pink visors. Skipping the show for Tucson is like jumping to Broadway without stopping in Peekskill.

"A lot of people think Quartzsite is like a big flea market, but you find $5,000 rocks here," said Kym Scott, president of Tyson Wells shows. "We try to schedule our show ahead of Tucson so dealers can leave here and go straight there."

The Quartzsite gem shows started about 30 years ago when a few dealers started selling rocks out of the back of their trucks. "It's just grown," said Quartzsite Mayor Verlyn Michel, a former Northern Californian who parked his RV permanently in 1989. The Quartzsite shows are upstarts compared with the oldest events on the Tucson lineup, but it's inaccurate to call Tucson the granddaddy of them all. The two shows are more like brothers, with Tucson playing the serious, successful elder to Quartzsite's lovable, youthful irreverence.

Quartzsite is like a live version of Web auction site eBay. Sellers in Quartzsite tag used nails, ancient Playboy magazines and homemade macrame. Most of the buyers are geological naifs who aren't quite sure what to do with something that can't be used to clean an RV or jumpstart a flagging sex drive.

But gem and mineral dealers say they're not put off by the lack of polish. It allows them to have a little fun before the real business begins. In Tucson, there isn't time to celebrate big sales with desert barbecues - not with 45,000 shoppers from Tucson and elsewhere passing through starting Friday and an estimated $75 million in tourism dollars generated for the city.

"Tucson is glitzy and clean and they'll buy every strand of my beads, but the people can be snooty," said bead dealer J-Me Lynn of Pine Grove, Calif. "I love Quartzsite."

Lynn, who estimates the Tucson shows account for 20 percent of her annual income, insists she'd rather spend a few more weeks in Quartzsite than make the inevitable trek southeast. For in addition to being a rockhound's Woodstock, the Quartzsite shows give dealers a chance to check out the competition and network with small-time salesmen who can't afford to work the Tucson shows.

J-Me Lynn and her husband, Guy, who along with J-Me's mother run Wild Things Beads, recently went to sub-Saharan Africa to track down an exclusive source of sugilite, a native stone. The word was rapidly whispered back to them: Try Tucson.

Some Quartzsite regulars say they've been shut out of Tucson by rising booth rental fees, which often top $2,000.

"Hell, I can't afford Tucson," said Ray Larson, a two-toothed rockhound from Nevada who has traveled the swap meet circuit for 60 years. "I was in Tucson a long, long time ago, but you've got to pay a lot of dough to get in there. I'm not big enough."

Scott, president of the Tyson Wells shows, said his show's low participation price is partly why it has earned a place on most dealers' itineraries.

"A lot of people come buy in Quartzsite and sell in Tucson," Scott said. "You can get product cheaper here because the overhead's not as high."

Those like the Lynns, who do come to Tucson, are now in the midst of moving from one show to another. J-Me Lynn plans to leave Quartzsite late Thursday night.

Judy Morton, co-owner of Judy's Crystals N Things, says she has to constantly hose the dust off her wares.

"We do a little switcheroo," she said. "My husband loads up my van with beads and dumps me off in Tucson."

Guy Lynn then returns to Quartzsite to open their booth on Friday morning. He'll join J-Me at the Rodeway Inn next week.

"It takes a lot of work, but it's worth it," J-Me said.

J-Me can't quite remember how she got interested in beads, but it's one of the few things she doesn't know about them. "I'm in love with beads," said J-Me, who squeals at the sight of her favorites. "They aren't just little round things with holes. I think they're beautiful."

J-Me, 41, has been selling beads since she added a few to the inventory of her "hippie gift shop" near San Francisco about 20 years ago.

"The shop was 98 percent gifts and 2 percent beads; within a year, it was the other way around," said Guy Lynn, 44, a Zimbabwe emigre who married J-Me for a green card and later fell in love with her. The Lynns have spent the last week preparing for Tucson, sorting and stringing together thousands of bead strands. J-Me said the allure of all those glittering stones is often irresistible: "Before I part with these, I'm going to lay them all down on the bed and roll in them," she said.

J-Me will arrange their booth in Tucson, which is unlikely to look anything like the Quartzsite booth. In Quartzsite, unschooled shoppers routinely try to slip on beads loosely strung together for browsing. They think they're bracelets.

This smidgen of Herkimer quartz belongs to Peter and Amy Emsminger of Blossburgh, Pa.

"They're the walking dead, looking for bargains," Guy said of Quartzsite's hard-core RVers. "They walk by and say 'That's just beads.' What do they mean? They're treasures!"

The Tucson setup will target serious buyers, with strands of golden charlotte cut beads prominently displayed. The Lynns are the only suppliers of the coveted seed beads, although dealers who've already raided their stash will also have some for sale.

"I want Linda Ronstadt to come to my room this year," J-Me said.

It all sounds very chichi, but the Lynns will be bringing a bit of Quartzsite to Tucson with them. The Quartzsite shows are notorious for leaving a light coating of dust on every jewel, bead and rock offered for sale.

"I'll sit with four towels in the hotel room and I'll wash beads until the towels are black," Lynn said. "But if you don't love the dust and the desert and the people, don't come here."

* Contact Hanna Miller at 434-4078 or at hmiller@azstarnet.com.