ROCK SHOP OF DISTINCTION: NEVADA MINERAL & BOOK COMPANY
(Part I)
What makes for a “Rock Shop of Distinction”? There are many answers, but for one, look no further than Nevada Mineral & Book Company (NMBC). Owner and proprietor Walter “Walt” Lombardo refers to his gallery as his “own source of passion.” That passion began for Walt as it did for me and so many others: by picking up rocks as a young child.
Two features make NMBC truly unique in the rock shop community: Walt’s mammoth stock of books and publications and his incredibly detailed knowledge as a professional geologist.
In the course of this two-part series, I’ll describe many other qualities and services that sets Walt and his business apart, but these two stand out.
In addition to rocks galore, NMBC is billed as offering “the largest selection of earth science publications and objects in North America.” How large? Well, the inventory is comprised of more than 100,000 new, used, and rare books, field guides, magazines, journals, and government reports and maps on geology, natural history, mineralogy, paleontology, gemology,
jewelry, and lapidary arts, meteorites, rockhounding, prospecting, mining and Western mining history. (Did I miss anything?) Walt once told me he had purchased no less than nine tons of books in a single swoop from a closing geological survey office. While knowledge, surely, cannot be measured by the pound, nine tons certainly is one heck of a lot of knowledge!
Those seeking detailed technical information will find USGS bulletins and circulars, maps and professional papers, U.S. Bureau of Mines reports, periodicals, and more. The amateurs among us can stock up on guidebooks about field trips, mineral and fossil identification, and basic lapidary art and gemology techniques. While some books are on display within the shop and others are housed in an on-site out-of-print room, most reside within a half dozen off-site storage units. If Walt does not have a title in his vast vaults, it is likely he can track it down for you.
Of all the rock shops I have visited, this is handsdown my favorite. In full disclosure, I must admit a decided bias. Before retirement, I spent my entire professional career in book publishing, so obviously, in addition to rocks and fossils, ink flows through my veins, and I have an unabashed love of books. And I do mean books. Books of the paper and print variety in existence ever since Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1440. Not the online nor vanitypress variety of nonsense that all-too-often pops up today. True-blue vetted books of authority with the rough texture and earthy smell of paper and ink.
If, like me, it is books old and new that you love, you will surely adore NMBC. Walking through the doors is
like entering a combination library and museum. Walt’s shop—which he prefers to call a “gallery”—provides a warm and cozy atmosphere crowded with nooks like you’ll find in a library, complete with tall book-lined shelves and comfortable chairs to settle into and relax as you peruse your selections. Just a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic, I saw Walt operating a booth at a couple of local gem shows. In addition to purchasing several minerals from him, I also picked up a couple more books to add to my library. (I’m not at that nine-ton level, but I’m getting close.)
Books on offer include out-of-print volumes and old classics, which should delight the antiquarian interested in rare leather-bound first editions from long ago. That same person also likely will be delighted when stumbling across old mining stock certificates. NMBC offers a nice selection of these and other historical mining-related artifacts and ephemera.
Books are Walt’s best-sellers in his online business, especially within a well-established clientele. Still, as the gallery’s title makes clear, Nevada Mineral & Book Company is not just about books. You will find minerals, rocks, and fossils of all sorts, including minerals Walt himself, collected back when he worked as a professional geologist. Such specimens come with highly detailed information. In some instances, this includes not only the name of the specific mine, but also the level within the mine from which a particular specimen was collected.
HELPING COLLECTORS CULTIVATE KNOWLEDGE
In addition to specimens Walt collected long ago, he offers many specimens he acquired from miners or mine owners themselves or direct importers via connections forged with people from historic U.S. localities (e.g., Illinois fluorite, Michigan native copper) as well as countries like Madagascar, Morocco, Afghanistan, the Congo, or Brazil. He also sells on consignment, working with individuals or estates liquidating a personal or family collection. By avoiding intermediaries, Walt not only provides superior provenance for each specimen but also can offer those specimens at reasonable prices for both beginning and advanced connoisseur collectors on everything from tiny thumbnail minerals to massive crystal clusters.
When visiting NMBC, don’t just “window shop” the high-end specimens alluringly arranged in glass cases or out on open display. Spend some time and take a deep dive beneath the surface. Many minerals and fossils for sale are contained within drawers of attractive wood cabinets. Sliding drawers open to reveal treasures within is like visiting the backroom storage hall of a museum. Spending time at NMBC mindfully transported me back to 1975 when I received a behind-the-scenes peek into the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History!
I’ve purchased and photographed specimens from Walt’s shop for my monthly column. Several also have appeared in many an exhibit I’ve displayed at local, regional, and national gem and mineral shows. Over the years, I’ve attempted to build a sort of “type” collection of minerals specific to California, and—along with minerals from around the world—Walt boasts a fine selection of California-specific specimens.
I am sure to find a new, unexpected piece to add to my California collection on any given visit.
I have another collection that I often haul out for display at shows, namely, “Gemstone Fakes and Phonies,” showing humanmade crystals and synthetic gems. It has earned trophies at both California and the American Federation of Mineralogical Societies competitions, and several of the award-winning specimens were acquired at NMBC.
Walt also offers an unusually large selection of such materials as lab-grown quartz crystals from Russia or vivid blue chalcanthite crystals grown from kits. While lab-grown crystals may have been crafted just yesterday, other specimens in stock tell of long ago. You will find a nice selection of fossils such as trilobites from Morocco, Green River Formation fish from Wyoming, fossil lobsters from Australia, ammonites from Madagascar and Montana, Arizona petrified wood, and fossil shark teeth, among other items.
While the fossils speak of times long past here
on Earth, other stock specimens include those that are not millions but rather billions of years old and are quite literally from out-of-this-world. I’m talking about meteorites and tektites. You will find these, and oddities crafted by storms in Earth’s atmosphere, such as fulgurites, or glassy tubes fused by lightning strikes hitting the sand.
The creative lapidary artist and jewelry maker will find rough stones and slabs and finished cabochons and faceted gemstones with which to work and play. When that rare occasion arises, Walt can offer on consignment gems from significant collections, including that of Dr. Joel Arem, author of the Color Encyclopedia
of Gemstones. Walt’s primary focus is on colored gemstones. Those interested in especially fine or rare stones can arrange a private showing of stones currently in stock or recently obtained via consignment.
Walt says within the physical shop, as opposed to online activity, gemstone minerals are big sellers. Cut gemstones (exceptionally rare or unusual varieties) help keep his gallery going. As an example, he unfolded a parcel paper to show me two huge faceted benitoite specimens.
A PATH TO PURPOSE
He’s been intrigued by such cut gemstones since age 23. After graduating from college in upstate New York with a geology degree, he had made his way to Nevada hoping for a job with a mine, only to land in Las Vegas as the 1979 recession hit. Commodity prices plummeted, and mine after mine shut down. To make ends meet, Walt took a job as a Las Vegas bartender. One day, he struck up a conversation with a nice guy who turned out to be the personal jeweler of none other than Wayne Newton. Impressed by Walt’s knowledge of mineralogy, he encouraged Walt to get into gems. Thus, Walt embarked on courses with the Gemological Institute of America and has been involved with gemstones ever since. (Thank you, Wayne Newton!)
Let’s delve a bit more into the path that formed Walt’s passion for rocks and books, and ultimately the creation of NMBC. He established the business in 1985 as a fairly small mail-order operation while making appearances at local club shows with mineral specimens and the occasional out-of-print book. I asked about the initial spark that moved him in this direction from his career as a professional geologist. As I learned during our conversation, rather than a single spark, it was more of a long sizzling fuse that continues to sizzle and pop.
When a friend’s rockhound father graciously took Walt along on a field trip adventure at the age of eight, he was hooked. Indeed, in the early 1970s, the desire to visit and explore old mines throughout his home state of Connecticut served as Walt’s primary motivator in obtaining a driver’s license. He majored in geology at the University of Rochester, where he enjoyed a couple of formative events. One was attending the Rochester Mineralogical Symposium in its early years and subsequently visiting the famed William “Bill” Wallace Pinch at his Rochester home to see his famed collection. Bill Pinch (1940-2017) was a notable mineral collector for whom the mineral pinchite is named and who has been recognized with the “Pinch Medal” given every-other-year at the Tucson Mineral Show to recognize major contributions by a member of the collector-dealer community.
The other formative experience was landing an on-campus job at the University of Rochester geology library, which hooked Walt on books and rocks. At the young age of just 18 or 19, he began purchasing books
of his own from mineralogist and author extraordinaire John Sinkankas, with whom he established a regular correspondence. Sinkankas was not only a collector and author, but he and his wife Marjorie had established the Peri Lithon Books company (using the Greek words for “about stones”). Upon his death, John’s library became the property of the Gemological Institute of America, adding over 20,000 new items to the GIA library, including 8,000 books. Corresponding directly with such an icon made a deep impression on the young Walt Lombardo. *To learn more about Mr. Sinkankas, see Bob Jones’ On the Rocks column, starting on page 78 of this issue.
When Walt graduated college in 1978, he moved from the East Coast to the whole different Las Vegas world to begin a career as a professional geologist. While there, at the age of 23, he opened a newspaper and saw an advertisement for a gem show sponsored by a local amateur rock club. When he attended the event, he was a bit underwhelmed. It was a small-scale affair with just seven or eight dealers. Still, it looked like fun, especially after meeting and talking with the members, so he joined the club on the spot.
Within two weeks—as he attended his first meeting— he unexpectedly found himself anointed Show Chair! In a nutshell, that describes my own experience getting baptized-by-fire in the amateur rock and gem club community, and I am sure it describes the experiences of many others. Be careful what you wish for. Undaunted, Walt jumped in and immediately raised the number of dealers to 18 at the very next show. That number increased to 35 just three years later. He also improved the venue, thanks to his mom. His mother, a professional travel agent, worked magic to find and book affordable space in a local Vegas hotel, and the club show grew and grew.
While becoming initiated into the world of local gem and mineral societies—interacting with and learning about dealers and the dealer community as well as amateur collectors and lapidary artists—Walt found himself in the right place at the right time when the Nevada Bureau of Mines closed its offices at Boulder City. In doing so, they offered to donate their entire reference library to the University of Nevada. Surprisingly, the university turned down the offer. Walt jumped in, organizing the entire collection. Once they saw what was on offer, the university took what they wanted for their library, and Walt got to keep the rest. Thus, was the start of his career in the book business. As noted earlier, by 1985, he was attending local club shows as a dealer himself, hawking both minerals and books.
A big boost came in 1989 when Walt acquired the inventory of the Mineralogical Record Book Department. At that time, he also began offering new in-print books and journals. The next big step came in 2001 with his first brick-and-mortar retail store opening in Henderson, Nevada. Eight years later, he saw a move to his current location in Orange, California, with not just a storefront but also what Walt refers to as a “natural history gallery.”
GLADLY SERVING “ROCK POX DISEASE”
As should be abundantly clear, with NMBC, Walt has crafted a true one-stop-shop with quality items of interest for rockhounds, geologists, and science teachers of every stripe who are afflicted with “rock pox disease.” Additionally, he offers jewelry and home décor items for those in the general public who don’t realize that wearing a gemstone pendant or hanging an attractively framed fossil fish on the wall makes them rock-pox-afflicted rockhounds, too. As Walt says in his website, the inventory at NMBC is so big and varied you should “plan on staying a while if you come to visit our store while in Southern California. You will not be disappointed.”
All I can say is that is the understatement of the century!