SILVER PEAK, Nevada – Seeing gold-silver (lithium, rare elements, you name it) in this state means putting in helicopter miles, Chevy Suburban miles and air miles.
It’s often the freeway miles, on a four-hour or five-hour trek from Las Vegas to points north or northwest, where you learn the most. Especially when your seat-mates are investors, writers, financiers, geologists or engineers who have seen scores of open pit, heap leach pad and mothballed mines in Nevada, which produces about four-fifths of all the gold in the USA.
“I think it’s important to get the terms right,” veteran investor, pilot, wanna-be Ghana placer miner and www.321gold.com operator Bob Moriarty tells us as we barrel through I-95. “Like QE – quant-easing. The correct term is counterfeiting.”
That gets laughs from this go-gold group. But when Bob, and others in this Chevy truck, start running through a dwindling investment list of cheap natural resources prospects, eyebrows are raised. I swear, the pens and pencils come out.
We are talking Nevada, Ontario, Mexico, Africa … Philippines, Mali, even Europe. Half of the names bounced around the Chevy Suburban are ones I’ve come across. Most are listed in Canada, Australia or North America. All of them are orphans: ignored, shunned – even in a commodities build-up that has ENRAPTURED junior prospectors and producers this autumn and early winter.
Be warned. Most equities – natural resources and otherwise – are dirt-cheap for a reason. The trick is discerning the possibility of whether the reason is reasonable or unreasonable. The Chevy Suburban names include Platinex (TSX: V.PTX, Stock Forum), Creso Exploration (TSX:V.CXT, Stock Forum), Samex Mining (TSX: V.SXG, Stock Forum), Latin American Minerals (TSX: V.LAT, Stock Forum), Philippine Metals (TSX: V.PHI, Stock Forum), Euromax (TSX: V.EOX, Stock Forum), Gold Standard (TSX: V.GV, Stock Forum), Noventa Ltd. (OTO: NOVXF, Stock Forum), Great Quest Minerals (TSX: V.GQ, Stock Forum), Golden Phoenix Minerals (OTO: BB: GPXM, Stock Forum) … oh and yes, a handful of syndications, private companies or cash-pool corporations waiting for their equity debuts.
Themes bouncing around the inside of our truck transport include the U.S. War Act of 1942 and how it shut down many productive gold mines. The credit crisis of 2007-08 and how it shut down mines, prospects and financing avenues. Royalty mining. Undiscovered or barely discovered gold and silver districts. Drill plays. Infrastructure plays. Legal plays. People plays.
On the subject of royalty franchises, I am in Nevada to look at the first piece of a strategy for multiple-jurisdiction mining and royalty streams.
Golden Phoenix Minerals and its interest in Scorpio Gold (TSX: V.SGN, Stock Forum)’s Mineral Ridge property (mineralized quartz and intruding granites) are the reasons I am here. That and the fact that CEO Thomas Klein has after a couple of years laid into place a royalty strategy that touches Nevada, the Shining Tree District in Ontario (Trelawney Mining (TSX: V.TRR, Stock Forum) is in the area) and a moly-gold property in Peru.
Geologist Paul Dockweiler tells me there are folks figuratively lined up to work at this expanding Mineral Ridge gold and silver pit, heap leach and mine.
Paul and his Silver Spartan LLC consulting firm of Las Vegas were early into this historic mining area, approximately 5,600 feet altitude and fours’ northwest of Vegas. The 32-year-old Mr. Dockweiler claimed many of the parcels around here and also at one time served as lead geologist for Golden Phoenix Minerals (OTO: BB: GPXM, Stock Forum), which is still contracting his services.
“See these granite foot walls,” Paul Dockweiler tells a small group of us, including Mr. Klein. “Tremendous potential for an open pit.” (See photo: Paul, left of photo, and Bob Moriarty on the site.)
Mr. Klein is a Montreal entrepreneur who hopes to transform sleepy Golden Phoenix via property stakes in Nevada, in the Shining Tree mining district not far from Sudbury, Canada; and in Peru.
We’ll get a broader understanding of Mineral Ridge, NV, and Golden Phoenix later this week in subscriber service Ticker Trax.
As for the ticker banter in our Chevy Suburban, the ideas continued into the evening … and the next morning. That’s stamina for you.
Note:Thom Calandra owns none of the stocks in this report.
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THOM CALANDRA of Ticker Trax helps his audience find value in a quagmire of investment choices. Thom was founding editor of MarketWatch, CBS MarketWatch and FT MarketWatch. He was the voice of Thom Calandra's StockWatch and The Calandra Report. Thom has been covering life-sciences and natural resources since 1988.
Ticker Trax™ is published by Stockhouse Publishing Ltd. Ticker Trax is an information service for subscribers and neither Stockhouse nor Thom Calandra nor Danny Deadlock is a broker or an investment advisor. None of the information contained therein constitutes a recommendation by Mr. Calandra or Mr. Deadlock 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 and Thom Calandra and Danny Deadlock do not receive from any companies that may be mentioned in Ticker Trax. Some of those companies are advertisers or clients of Stockhouse, the publisher. Xtra-Gold Resources was at one time a preferred client of Stockhouse for investment relations, marketing and other commercial but not editorial services, which are never guaranteed. 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 SEEKING PERSONALIZED INVESTMENT ADVICE. Copyright 2010 all rights reserved.