About Cal Neva Mineral Company

About our name

Because of our close proximity to the California-Nevada border a lot of things up here are named Cal Neva this or Cal Neva that.  Also, having started out in California and having moved to Nevada it seemed like a good name for this venture.

About Russ

I was born and lived in San Diego, CA for 40 years.  When I was a kid I had a rock collection.  And it was just that, rocks.  These things that have to do with nature fascinated me when I was a kid and now that I'm an adult (some who know me might disagree with me on the adult part) they do so even more.

I don't know what became of that first collection.  As a teen I got interested in other things; Music, Girls and Motorcycles.  In 1988 I was re-introduced to rocks by a friend whom I had attended High School with and had recently become reacquainted with.  He explained to me what minerals were and suggested I read John Sinkankas' Prospecting for Gemstones and Minerals, as well as Mineralogy for Amateurs.  I was hooked (thank you Kyle, thank you John).  I soon began attending the local mineral shows, purchasing 5 and 10 dollar specimens.

My first big acquisition was in 1989 when I traded a “basket case” Yamaha 650 motorcycle to a my friend for some 40 or so mineral specimens he had acquired. Like most of you my taste in minerals began to develop (thank you, Ed & Naomi Weber) and I found myself wanting better specimens for my collection. Being a Joe blue collar working man I did not have the means to acquire really good specimens. Then one day I had an idea to buy a large amount of specimens (thus getting a better price) and trade them for specimens for my collection or sell them at a small profit and use the proceeds to enhance my collection. So I sold some of my Home Depot stock and away I went (thank you Wali for helping me out on our first deal). As time passed, with a lot of trial and error, I learned what a good specimen was and equally important what a good deal was.

In 1995 while doing some trading with Rob Lavinsky he mentioned that he was going to start selling minerals on the internet. I must explain to you here that in 1995 I barely knew what a computer was and although I was aware of the existence of the internet, I thought it was just some computer nerd thing. As time passed I became more successful in my mineral ventures and became computer literate along the way. Seeing what was happening with minerals on the internet, in late 1999, I too decided to have a go at it. Well, life gets in the way of your dreams sometimes. Which brings us to December 2002. I resigned from my job and moved from San Diego to Sparks, Nevada. I had been coming to the Reno-Sparks area for vacation since 1998 when my digging buddy moved up here. The first time I came up I knew I would move here someday. Those of you who have been to Northern Nevada or Lake Tahoe will know what I mean. The move gave me the time to bring life to the idea of a website of my own. With a little help from my brother Mike and armed with a copy of Dreamweaver for DUMMIES, I began in late April 2003 to bring Cal Neva Mineral Company to life. I hope you like what I've done.