Scholten's Fine Minerals provides mineral collectors with high quality, aesthetic mineral specimens from localities around the world. Quality, value and customer satisfaction are the ideals on which this business is founded.

I offer a wide selection of minerals ranging in size from thumbnail to large cabinet and select specimens that are attractive, well crystallized and, whenever possible, undamaged. I also look for specimens from uncommon localities, those with unusual crystal habits or associations and rare species.

Feel free to let me know what is on your mineral "wish list." Simply send me an e-mail and let me know what you're looking for. I will do my best to get it for you.

I hope you will consider Scholten's Fine Minerals for all of your mineral collection needs.

Personal Background:
I have been an avid field collector for more than 23 years and enjoy the thrill of discovering something new and unique.

I started this business as a means of offering high quality, aesthetic mineral specimens to others. I enjoy sharing my knowledge about and enthusiasm for the wonderful hobby of mineral collecting. Actually, my interest began with fossils. It all started during a family trip to a farm in New York when I was a kid. While walking past the horse stables, I saw a piece of limestone covered with fossilized brachiopod shells sticking out of the ground. I quickly got down on my knees and pulled the rock out. After that, on monthly visits to the public library with my mom, I took out every book I could that had anything to do with fossils or dinosaurs. One of my favorite books was written by Roy Chapman Andrews, detailing the fascinating fossil egg discoveries made during his expeditions to the Gobi Desert in Mongolia.

At age 14 I joined my first mineral club, "The New England Prospectors," and met Steve Garza, a serious mineral collector and prospector. He saw my enthusiasm and took me under his wing. Now, Steve was no ordinary mineral collector mind you! On field trips, he used to bring down what seemed like mountains of rock lined with sparkling crystals. He had (and still has!) an uncanny ability to always find something good. In fact, several of his specimens are housed in the collections of prominent museums around the country, including the Harvard University Geological and Mineralogical Museum and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh.

My first visit to Steve's apartment was one I will always remember: the entire place was wall-to-wall minerals. Even the refrigerator was stocked with them. Steve taught me all he knew about mineral collecting and I am grateful to him for that. And, despite ruining more than my share of weloganite specimens (a very rare species) during a trip to the Francon Quarry in Montreal in 1981, we are good friends! He even gave me the nickname "SB" which, by the way, has nothing to do with weloganites.

Welcome to Scholten's Fine Minerals! Bringing a world of minerals to you.

P.O.Box 1146 : Leominster, MA 01453 : 978-534-0156
email: brian@scholtensfineminerals.com

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