The San Diego County Mineral Collection of Pala International/William Larson

The San Diego County Mineral Collection
of Pala International/William Larson

This is the company collection of the well-known dealership responsible for bringing the Himalaya Mine to fame, Pala International-The Collector of Fallbrook, California. This collection was assembled starting in the late 1970s under the joint guidance of Bill Larson and Ed Swoboda initially. It began as an educational and investment-style reference collection of local San Diego County minerals, housed in the showroom of The Collector, the iconic store founded by Bill Larson and Ed Swoboda following their discovery of the Tourmaline Queen bluecap pocket in 1972. They went on to mine the Himalaya Mine, which Bill Larson continued to mine until closing it in 2002. By the late 1970's, Bill Larson had bought out Ed's ownership in the store and business, retaining and growing over the years this collection to fill a large trophy case that remained in the store on exhibit over the years.

When I moved to San Diego in 1995, this was the first County collection I saw. Seeing the Larson collection was the pilgrimage for advanced collectors visiting the hotbed of Southern California as far back as the 70's though, and this collection was right there through it all. The goal was to show, in a mix of sizes and species (and quality levels), a broad array of the mineral species occurring in San Diego County with emphasis on historic locales. Particular emphasis was placed on obtaining locality pieces from small pegmatite workings and unusual finds, and pieces from old museum collections: the kind of things that would inspire local collectors (and add value greater than the sum of the parts to this collection as a significant locality suite at the same time). I never thought this collection would be for sale and now I am proud to offer this historic collection here. My thanks to Bill Larson for his help in labelling and providing history on his specimens.

I have finally been able to get cleaned, prepped, and posted the second installment (another 50 specimens!) from my 2008 acquisition of this fine and large collection of San Diego County minerals. Stay tuned for update III, a final 50-60 specimens, by end of 2009.

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN TO SEE NEWLY ADDED SPECIMENS.
OR
Click here to view (PREVIOUS) UPDATE PART I (34 specimens) of the PALA INTERNATIONAL SAN DIEGO COUNTY collection!

STAY TUNED: PART III, a final batch of 70 specimens, posting soon!

Click here for a photo of the collection intact, in its original home: PALA INTERNATIONAL COMPANY'S SAN DIEGO COUNTY locality collection!

US$ € EURO ¥ YEN £ POUND CAN$ AUS$
(click on a page number to go to that page:)

page 1 / 9 - 123 specimens selected - next - bottom - back to the Galleries

PALA-399 - Beryl var. Aquamarine with Morganite - AUS$ 7772
Oceanview Mine, Chief Mountain, Pala District, San Diego Co., California, USA
cabinet, 10 x 8 x 7 cm

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