Meet Your Merchant: Geologist turns passion for rocks into success

While it's not exactly what he planned on pursuing while studying geology in college, Mike Owens said he has been content selling rocks, fossils and gemstones from his three shops in Virginia City and Reno for nearly three decades.

"I always liked collecting rocks and fossils as a kid," Owens, 56, said. "Kind of fell into it more than anything. This wasn't my plan more than 30 years ago, but it's just how it's worked out. It's nice when you like the product - it's somewhat related to my field. I like the people."

After graduating from the University of Missouri and spending six years working for a company that was extracting uranium in New Mexico, Owens came to the region with a friend in the early 1980s in search of work.

His friend, also a geologist, suggested the two of them open a rock shop in tourist-heavy Virginia City. By 1983, the Comstock Rock Shop was open for business along Virginia City's main thoroughfare.

"When I couldn't find a job I opened this up," said Owens, who eventually bought out his friend. "Saw the potential and just stuck with that."

By 1991, Owens had opened a second location in Virginia City, the Stone Age Quarry, across the street from Comstock, and another location in Reno. All of them supply a variety of gemstones, fossils and meteorites for customers looking for gifts and keepsakes.

His walls are covered in fossils of ancient fish and trilobites - primitive invertebrates that lived in the ocean hundreds of millions of years ago. The store is a collection of colors, ranging from deep greens to vibrant purples and reds with stones from around the world. There's also a collection of rocks from Nevada, including petrified sequoia from Elko.

Items range in price from 50 cents to $3,800 for geodes the size of a small child. The store also sells silver jewelry.

Owens said the market for rocks, whether from a mine or from space, is sensitive to global supplies. He pulls out an iron meteorite the size of a softball that was found in Argentina. It fell to Earth about 40,000 years ago.

Right now, meteorites from that region are the cheapest. That wasn't the case when people were scouring the Arizona desert near Canyon Diablo in search of meteorites around the site of an asteroid impact that happened about 50,000 years ago.

"They cleaned that out and those things are four or five times higher than when I started," Owens said. "The supply went down."

Meanwhile, some countries have placed restrictions on the export of fossils, which affects the global market and Owens' suppliers.

As for business in Virginia City, the recession has impacted Owens' bottom line.

"Instead of popping $1,000 for an amethyst geode, maybe they'll buy a little one for $250," he said.

But other markets have boomed, namely people who take a metaphysical approach to life and believe certain gemstones contain special powers.

"It's gotten much stronger," he said. "I don't know if it's a spiritual thing or the power of the stones or whatever... those people are very strong in their conviction."

Over the years, though, not much has changed for Owens. He lives in Reno and makes the drive up to Virginia City a few times each week to his two stores that look exactly the way they did when he opened his business 28 years ago.

"It's been good for me," he said.