In Memoriam of Scott Alan Kleine

In Memoriam of Scott Alan Kleine
​by Kevin Dixon

​Well-known and widely beloved mineral dealer Scott Alan Kleine died of acute organ
failure in Rock Springs, Wyoming, on September 3, 2025, while traveling from his
longtime home in Reno, Nevada, to the fall mineral shows in Denver, where he had
been a fixture for many years. Scott had suffered a series of devastating health
issues during the last decade, and the rigors of travel and labor of shows had
become a struggle. Yet he dearly loved the fellowship and camaraderie of mineral
shows, and had determined to make it to Denver despite of his rapidly failing health.
He was 57 years old.

Scott was born August 29, 1968 in Chehalis, Washington, and adopted by loving
parents Carroyl Fayne Damon and Harry Walter Kleine, Jr. Growing up in Albany,
Oregon, precocious and energetic, he was a self-described “problem child” who
often found relief from the mundane through activities that, while highly creative,
were not always received by his parents and teachers with his same level of
enthusiasm.
​
Scott’s interest in minerals began when he was very young. He found focus and
direction during the summers of his high school years in the streams and rivers of
Northern California, exploring and dredging gold with his father. His interest and
expertise in gold continued growing throughout his lifetime.

​After gradating from high school in 1987, Scott served in the U.S. Army. He received
basic training at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, trained as a combat engineer and
explosives expert at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, and was deployed to the jungles of
Panama just prior to the U.S. operations to depose Panamanian dictator Manuel
Noriega. In Scott’s words, “I still had a lot of unfocused energy after high school. I
just needed to blow up some stuff to get it out of my system.”

After completing his service and receiving an honorable discharge from the Army,
Scott moved to Reno, where his mother was employed at the University of Nevada.
In 1996, he earned his B.S. Degree in Geology from the MacKay School of Mines at
UNR. He never married, and lived the rest of his life in the same apartment he first
moved into during college.

Scott started his mineral sales business after college under the name “Scott Kleine
Minerals,” and soon changed the company’s name to Great Basin Minerals. He did
occasional geologic field work for various Nevada gold mining firms during the mid-
1990s, but his focus grew with his business, and his passion for field-collecting
exploded, as did his knowledge of and expertise in Nevada minerals. Scott, and his
longtime crew including friends John Greenfield and Joe Swartz, soon became
familiar faces at many mineral shows, including shows in Tucson and Denver, where
his reputation for friendliness, enthusiasm, and deep knowledge of minerals grew. It
was during this period that Scott and I met, and our friendship also grew quickly.

​Scott’s many field-collecting accomplishments are well known. Among his most
notable discoveries are outstanding olivenite crystals in 1996, rare minerals and
chalcophyllite in 1999 at the Majuba Hill Mine, Nevada; superb, unique gold
specimens on matrix from the Olinghouse District, Nevada (Rocks and Minerals,
January-February 2004); lorandite from Mercur, Utah; benitoite from San Benito
County, California; amethyst from the Kingston Range, California; and smoky quartz
and amethyst scepters from Petersen Mountain, Nevada.

His most celebrated discovery was the world’s finest fresnoite crystals at the Junilla
Mine, San Benito County, California in 1999. That year, Scott dedicated the entire
summer to the property, and proved out his extensive knowledge and keen
geological instincts with the find, which was later documented in Mineralogical
Record, July-August 2018.

Scott was also well-known for the large number and wide variety of specimens he
brought to market through his collaborations with commercial mines and private
projects. Among the best of these came from Nevada mines: wulfenite from the
Mobile Mine, Goodsprings; orpiment and realgar from the Twin Creeks Mine; the
world’s finest getchellite from the Getchell Mine; stibnite and baryte from the
Murray Mine; baryte and calcite from the Meikle Mine, and many others.
In addition to his well-known Nevada discoveries, Scott also spent a lot of
time digging pegmatites in Colorado. He made significant finds on my claims
(and those of other friends including Jessica Foutch, Troy Hamilton and
Quentin Good) in the Pile’s Peak Batholith (amazonite, fluorite, quartz), in the
Tarryall Mountains (topaz, quartz, feldspar), and high among the cliffs of Mt.
Antero and Mt. White in the Collegiates Range (aquamarine, phenakite,
fluorite, smoky quartz).

​Scott was not only a well-trained geologist, but he also had a seemingly
innate understanding of mineral systems, and a healthy dose of that
indefinable quality we all recognize in the field as belonging to someone very
special.  In all the many field collecting adventures we shared over the years,
he rarely failed to find something great.

In 2006, he located and opened a spectacular bi-color topaz pocket in the
Tarryalls which produced dozens of excellent crystals, and a very rare, intact
topaz & smoky quartz combination matrix specimen that now resides in Bryan
Lees' collection.

In recent years, Scott made a colorful impression at many shows, marketing a large
number of superb wulfenite and mimetite specimens mined by his close friend Keith
Wentz at the historic Rowley Mine, Maricopa County, Arizona. Keith’s efforts from
2010-2015 produced many of the finest specimens known from the locality. Most
recently, following Joe Swartz’s death in 2023, Scott presented Joe’s little-known,
but exceptional collection of U.S. and worldwide classic localities to the community,
much to the surprise and delight of collectors.

In his early years as a mineral dealer, Scott shared showrooms with a number of
other dealers, including Dr. Rob Lavinsky and Evan Jones. As my friendship with
Scott grew, we began sharing accommodations in Tucson, and soon we were setting
up together at many shows, including Dave Waisman’s short-lived San Rafael show
(a favorite), gold shows in Nevada, the Kansas City spring club show, and many
shows in Tucson, Denver, and Texas organized by Scott’s dear friend Sandra
Gonzales.

Scott’s gastronomic exploits are renowned, and he was a well-known and
accomplished grill master. His old barbecue accompanied him on most of our
field collecting trips, and during the 2000s-2010s, we hosted yearly parties in
Tucson where Scott's cooking was a central attraction. He proudly manned
the grills year after year, often long into the wee hours as more guests would
arrive, to make sure everyone was well-fed and no soul left hungry. He was
an excellent cook, as literally hundreds of people can attest.

Most recently, as his health issues became limiting, Scott found great joy in
less-taxing adventures like morel mushroom & artifact hunting in Kansas and
metal detecting in Alabama. He often accompanied me back to Kansas after the Denver Spring show, which always coincides with morel season at home. In 2017, Scott was thrilled to experience a bumper crop Kansas morel season, and went home with 15
or 20 quart jars filled with the dried delicacies. 

A coin collector since childhood and accomplished metal detectorist, Scott
shed tears of joy upon recovering his first gold coin in 2017 - a lifetime dream,
and a feat not accomplished by many detectorists - but one which Scott pulled
off many times in a ghost town near Mobile. At the time he died, his most
highly-prized possession was a Confederate Civil War button he also found in
Alabama. 

Besides writing more, to share the wealth of knowledge he humbly knew he
alone possessed, Scott's last, greatest wish was to find another historic gold
coin stash with his metal detector. That, and making it to the next show.

Upon learning of Scott’s death, Jessica Foutch and I closed our booth at the
Denver show and traveled to Wyoming, to make his final arrangements. A
few days later, Jacob Adams, Scott’s young friend who had volunteered to
drive him to Colorado and help with the show, completed Scott’s mission by
bringing his ashes to the Denver, where a number of Scott’s oldest friends
were able to spend a last few quiet moments in a private setting. Scott had
no living relatives, and he considered his friends, and the mineral community,
his family. Arrangements are being made for his remains to be interred at a
National Cemetery, with military honors.

In time, with the indispensable help of Scott’s friends and fellow Nevada
geologists Joe Blaylock and Rhonda Knupp of Reno, much of Scott’s
extensive collection of Nevada minerals will be made available to collectors.

My friendship with Scott Kleine spanned more than 30 years, and was among the
greatest of my life. I could never describe the huge amount of support and
encouragement he gave me in the mineral business, the countless happy hours and
days we spent exploring natural places in America, or how dear he was to me and my
family.
​
As I write this tonight, I am also preparing for the first show of my mineral career
without Scott Kleine somewhere nearby, as are his many friends, fellow mineral
dealers, and customers. The landscape will be forever changed.

Kevin Dixon

Join this first annual memorial BBQ in Scott's honor at Mineral City in Tucson, Arizona around 6ish, February 5, 2026.