TIBURON, California -- My wish for everyone is that on your birthday morning, awaken to this headline: GOLD AT RECORD HIGH.
It happened to me. Today. Tuesday. June 8, 2010.
Or this, also today: Medoro Resources & Gran Colombia On Track To Purchase Frontino Mine.
Or this: Ghana Gold Prospector Near Highest Price Since September 2008.
A good day for a birthday. We here at subscriber service Ticker Trax™ have high hopes for Colombia gold prospectors and producers. John Hicks’ Medoro (TSX: V.MRS, Stock Forum), which we own here at home, is turning into one of the most successful of the Colombia lot. Frontino Mine controls about 3,000 hectares in and around the town of Segovia in gold-plated Antioquia, Colombia. The company also operates the lower mine at El Marmato in the Department of Antioquia and states measured and indicated ounces of 7.5 million ounces and inferred ounces of 2.2 million at that property.
We also have high hopes for Gran Colombia, a private company under the stewardship of Colombia gold and energy pioneer Serafino Iacono, someone I have known and tracked for the past four years.
As for Ghana, Ticker Trax™ subscribers have digested our on-spot reporting about Xtra-Gold Resources (OTC:BB: XTGR, Stock Forum) since summer 2009. We here at home own shares of all of our featured research candidates, of which there are 12. They are called Planetary Prospects.
We hope you out there in the Stockhouse audience consider joining our expanding service, now in its 18th month. It is at www.tickertrax.com. Ticker Trax costs money. Needy wanna-be subscribers can petition Stockhouse with a plea and a suggested price for the $399 service at members@stockhouse.com.
Timberline Resources (TLR in NYC and TSX: V.TBR in Toronto):We are fresh back from Timberline’s Butte Highlands gold project in Montana. We met all of the company’s principals, including new CEO Randal Hardy, VP of Exploration Paul Dircksen, director and longtime mining engineer Ron Guill, senior geologist Art Glover, accounting officer Craig Crowell and the folks who make it happen on the ground – including project superintendent Lou Myers, who is an employee of Ron Guill’s SMD, Small Mine Development LLC of Boise, Idaho. (That is Lou, with moustache, in the Thom Calandra photo below.)
Timberline is a drilling services company that hopes to produce gold from Butte, Montana in the next 12 to 18 months or sooner. In the wake of its purchase of a Nevada prospector, Staccato Gold Resources, Timberline shares now trade in Canada under the symbol TBR and in New York under TLR.
Ronald W. Guill is a large Timberline shareholder. He is well known in the business of developing mines across the northwestern USA. His company SMD has worked for Newmont Mining (NYSE: NEM, Stock Forum) in Nevada, Revett Minerals (TSX: T.RVM, Stock Forum) in Montana, Great Basin Gold (TSX: T.GBG, Stock Forum) in Nevada … well, just about any operation looking to start or improve gold and silver production at their properties.
“The economics of the gold business are changing with the higher prices,” Mr. Guill says as we review some of his company’s “tools,” among them wireless robotic cement sprayers for sealing rock and 6,000-gallon double-walled fuel cells. (That is Ron Guill in the yellow jacket at Butte Highlands. Photo by Thom Calandra)
He says, “We have to learn, or maybe re-learn, how to mine what were tricky areas, like the Midas Mine in Nevada, these thin Hollister-like veins that could be extended with the right set of equipment. So now we’re using self-expanding backfill, 3-X expansion, and if it works, the economics change even more dramatically. If you have a Hollister-like thin-vein system that a Newmont or a GBG or someone would like to keep mining at what looks like the end of its mine life, but the gold price is attractive, like it is now, well, our approach can be expensive with the right 
equipment, but if we succeed we can get the good ore out selectively … more of it than anyone might have imagined 10 years ago.”
I’ll leave it at that. Ticker Trax™subscribers will receive more – including Timberline’s spreadsheet resource calculations for Butte Highlands. (We here at home do not own shares of Timberline. The company is not a Planetary Prospect of our service.)
For more on our 12 Planetary Prospects, please visit the Ticker Trax™ Library. Thom Calandra owns stakes in each of the Planetary Prospects. He also owns shares of Colombia’s Medoro Resources. In addition, Xtra-Gold Resources is a preferred client of Stockhouse.
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Please see Stockhouse for a selection of our Ticker Trax research and our password-protected library for subscribers. Please see our Ticker Traxpassword-protected library for coverage of copper in Peru, gold in Peru, gold and copper in Colombia, gold in Ghana and silver in Mexico.
(All photos by Thom Calandra. Thom and his family own shares of each of the 12 Planetary Prospects. Thom’s personal holdings are available for all to see on Stockhouse, the Canada publishing company. Subscribers are informed well in advance of any shift in research regarding Planetary Prospects and any purchase or sales decisions.)
Ticker Trax™Please see tickertrax.com to learn more about this wealth service and its Planetary Prospects. For an index of free Thom Calandra articles, please click here. For an entire explanation of our strategies, research methods and disclosure procedures regarding all aspects of Ticker Trax and our Stockhouse reports, please visit our readily available Stockhouse articles. Please see this one in particular: Core Box Revealed. Thom Calandra’s on-site tours of properties are paid in part by the hosting companies and in part by Stockhouse and Thom Calandra. For the password-protected Ticker Traxlibrary, please see: www.tickertrax.com/Login.aspx.
HOLDINGS: Thom’s holdings are listed for Stockhouse members at www.Stockhouse.com under the “portfolio setting” for user TCALANDRA. It is public and free to view. He and his family own recently minted gold and silver coins and shares of about 30 public and two private companies.
THOM CALANDRA of Ticker Trax helps his audience find value in a quagmire of investment choices. Thom co-founded CBS MarketWatch and MarketWatch.com. As the voice of Thom Calandra's StockWatch and The Calandra Report, Thom pegged $300-ounce gold as a long-term hold in 1999 and in 2000. He has been covering life-sciences and natural resources since 1988.
Thom Calandra and Stockhouse produce this and other free reports. Please visit www.Stockhouse.com.
Ticker Trax™ is published by Stockhouse Publishing Ltd. Ticker Trax is an information service for subscribers and neither Stockhouse nor Thom Calandra is a broker or an investment advisor. None of the information contained therein constitutes a recommendation by Mr. Calandra or Stockhouse that any particular security, portfolio of securities, transaction, or investment strategy is suitable for any specific person. Ticker Trax does not purport to tell or suggest the investment securities subscribers or readers should buy or sell for themselves. Subscribers and readers of Ticker Trax should conduct their own research and due diligence and obtain professional advice before making any investment decisions. Ticker Trax will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by a reader’s reliance on information obtained in the reports. Subscribers and readers are solely responsible for their own investment decisions. Opinions expressed in Ticker Trax are based on sources believed to be reliable and are written in good faith, but no representation or warranty, expressed or implied, is made as to their accuracy or completeness. All information contained in Ticker Trax should be independently verified. The editor and publisher are not responsible for errors or omissions or responsible for keeping information up to date or for correcting any past information. Ticker Trax does not receive compensation of any kind from any companies that may be mentioned in the report. Any opinions expressed are subject to change without notice. Owners, employees and writers may hold positions in the securities that are discussed in Ticker Trax. PLEASE DO NOT EMAIL THOM SEEKING PERSONALIZED INVESTMENT ADVICE, WHICH HE CANNOT PROVIDE. Copyright 2010 all rights reserved.