ED comments on CCD...maybe we increase 50% to 1.5 centsCascadero Copper Corp (TSXV:CCD) I don’t know where to begin with this deal. I never saw anything like it in my career. I mean, sure, we have seen a brutal bear market in the resource sector that we have been insulated against because of my relatively small allocation towards these issues. I’ve done that deliberately because I don’t expect a new metals driven cycle in exploration stocks to occur until the commodity markets have left their bottoms behind a bit. The excesses from profits that befall investors holding the producers’ shares has to trickle down and that takes time. However, even in bear markets there are winners and I happened to be on the lookout for a very cheap deal in the sector when I found this one. I helped resurrect it from the dead in 2016. The company had a lot going for it until the management group fell victim to an internal drama that ended in personal tragedy and great loss for everyone involved. When they came out of it there was just rubble. So if you are hunting for a long shot, this could be one. I’d still be willing to buy some under a nickel. After several rounds of resignations, I was about to throw in the towel on this stock and write a take-a-tax-loss obituary on it when the news hit my wire that they signed a deal with a NYSE listed company, Golden Minerals (AUMN), on one of its projects. Cascadero signed an earn-in agreement with Golden Minerals on its Sarita Este concessions in Argentina. Under the terms of the agreement, Golden can earn a 51% interest in the concession by paying Cascadero $150,000 (US) in cash upfront, and committing to a $2.5 million exploration program over four years. The deal stipulates that AUMN must complete a 2,000 meter core drilling program by the end of the second year. Golden operates out of Colorado. The Sarita Este tenement is located west of the Taca Taca porphyry deposit, which was bought by copper producer First Quantum Minerals for half a billion in 2013, and has been creeping towards a construction decision. Cascadero has all the claims surrounding this project and management even argues that First Quantum may not know yet that it will have to deal with Cascadero if it wants to build a proper mine. The project has had very preliminary work done on it, including some geochem, but it has never been drilled, the area has never been drilled, but it surrounds a big porphyry (taca taca), and usually those things cluster. A 2018 technical report noted that historically geologists assayed “grab samples from prospecting [that] have yielded results of up to 162.6 grams per tonne gold.” The report reveals several styles of mineralization exist on the property. A 2017 grid soil sampling program and mapping of the claims “outlined a gold-in-soil 14 www.DollarVigilante.com anomaly” that is “approximately 1,050 meters by 850 meters in size on surface.” The bottom line is that they have a target. But we’ve known that. They wanted to drill it to scare First Quantum into making a play for it. The company has several good assets, including its Cesium asset, which still has huge development potential and still represents one of the only known targets with the potential to host enough cesium to supply the market for that product, which we have discovered is approaching a supply crunch. Golden Minerals leases an oxide plant and has some interesting gold and silver assets in Mexico and Argentina that are on the block or being developed. The company has about a year or so to keep its NYSE listing but the group has connected shareholders, and the company has enough cash to make the deal. It isn’t a home run and hopefully there will be a few more signed deals ahead even if that means some dilution of interests, but at least some of these deserving assets and investors will finally get a shot. Just don’t chase it. Management is still a weak point here. And tax loss season will likely provide some liquidity overhead if you’re patient and want to accumulate a down and out deal with huge upside if it hits. But you may have to wait a year before any drilling news.