Another interesting week for Tocvan - Trench Sample VideoTocvan closed Friday at $0.37 on about 90,000 shares. A very strong cleanup week with over 341,000 shares being absorbed at these price levels. For shareholders new to Tocvan, the Caesars Report posted here is a great overview of Tocvan, well worth reading.
There are a number of new promotional pieces circulating both in North America and Germany. This level of increased awareness tells me that a new cycle of activity is about to occur for Tocvan, in particular, the start of drilling at Pilar and Picacho. In addition to drilling, there are a number of activities being undertaken in the background, such as interpretation of the Lidar data that is near completion, advanced metallurgical testing, pouring of a second Dore Bar, and the list goes on and on. All of this will eventually culminate in a swift movement to production and enhanced value to shareholders.
Why is Tocvan different from many other resource companies?
This is a complicated question but there are few obvious answers. First, Sonora Mexico is a great place to develop mines, the permitting process is quick compared to places like Canada and the US.
The second answer, and I believe the most important, is that Pilar is interpreted as a structurally controlled low-sulphidation epithermal system hosted in andesite rocks with mineralization starting virtually at the surface. This type of system is easily and efficiently used to extract gold and silver through a heap leach process. Surface mineralization is indirectly confirmed by the many alluvial miners in the lower elevations where gold has been washed from the surface at higher elevations and deposited through erosion in old river beds.
As my dad always said, "talk is cheap but a video or picture is worth a million words".
The following 1 minute 28 second video of Brodie Sutherland standing in Trench 3 is well worth watching. It verifies that Tocvan didn't select individual rocks to collect their bulk sample, but rather a deep (10 ft) and equally wide trench was completely collected.
Here is access to the video. https://twitter.com/i/status/1753056014390477139 But it gets better, the Head Grade averaging 1.9 g/t Au used for the heap leach test was collected from 4 very large trenches, not just 1 trench. This is very encouraging as it suggests a robust and productive open pit can be constructed.
It is important to understand that such a large sample SIGNIFICANTLY reduces the variability encountered when using a smaller drill. Just imagine, a small drill can miss gold sitting within inches of the drill hole when in fact there is gold present, whereas a 10 ft by 10 ft trench results in very accurate confirmation of gold over a much larger area. If I could add, most companies never get to conduct bulk sample testing due to large overburden. Thus, with gold at the surface, and no overburden to be removed, this makes for a very efficient and economical deposit to mine at Pilar.
I suspect we will find the same thing at El Picacho as evidenced by surface exposures already discovered. Recently, visible gold was discovered by a farmer along a newly constructed road. I am always encouraged by the discovery of visible gold as it instantly confirms the presence of gold and tells me this is a company worth following and owning shares.
How big Pilar is in terms of gold reserves has yet to be determined as it requires infill drilling, but the current database of assys is robust, suggesting they have something truly big. Add on top of this several highly productive new trends just discovered in their expanded area, this could make the resource even larger than first thought. Combine this with the price of gold over $2,000 USD, and the potential for the price of gold to go much higher, this makes Pilar even more compelling and exciting.