I have never made a geological prediction that wasn't true. That is because I am careful to never make a prediction where it isn't warranted. Geological possibilities are frequently disappointing but that is the nature of the business. It is frequently disappointing and you had better get used to the gamble. That is why they call it exploration. It is complicated by politics, intrigue and crookedness. On top of that there is business competence, bad luck, and metal prices.. They can all conspire at times to make your best bets bad.. But I did not make that cycle and I defy you to find anyone who anything but fortuitously gets it all right. I have not yet met that angel.
I do explore for minerals and yes I am underfunded and yes I network in order to attract investment with some success and failure. I also honestly comment on other's explo programs good and bad. Some people think I am scuzzy because I snipe at some situations and implicitly the people in them. Well I reserve the right to do so as I don't see the industry as lilly white. I think I have a lot of company in that. Not that any other industry is that good. I have found just as many thieves in the office equipment business. Xerox, IBM, Commodore make and made mining people look like amateurs. But since Phelps Dodge, Echo Bay, Noranda, Anaconda are such unprincipled thieves and many a junior mining promoter is such an unprincipled liar, would you rather there was a cone of silence around them, when more and more unknowledgeable suckers are getting into the market every day?
Now 50% of all households hold some stock compared to 10% in 1929. There is much more room for error and the people could use a gadfly in some of these situations. And what about the brokerages? It is far more dangerous to go after them as they are crooks with guns... and I mean they actually are that dangerous.. they think, some of them, as that it's their turf and right to launch illegal enterprise.. and not only illegal but highly immoral.. It is so dangerous to go after some of the VSE brokerages that I do not even try it.. But at least in that department I have a little more company in my view of some of the scuzziest..
Some would have it that mining promotion is a necessary evil ok.. it is a highly failure driven enterprise.. you have to sell chances of success where the chances are poor.. its like selling lottery tickets.. I try to sell reasonable chances to go mining where the chance at losing is very calculable.. it's perhaps in the dozens of percent that I make it ..whereas the chance of a grass roots explo program making it even as advanced as Winspear, given it is not tampered with.. is below ten percent a good distance.. why is that? why do people turn down the bird in the hand? Basically because all they want is what looks easy.. some chance of success.. and dump the paper for a double.. damn the detractors..
Risk is calculated in how much money you put up ..there is no such thing as percentage risk.. degree of uncertainty is due to the percent statistical chance of a mine given the information level you are at.. and the cost of getting to an information level where your chances improve .. in a worthwhile fashion.. So what does that mean..? It means given such and such skill and honesty.. what money is necessary to spend to find a mine..? well it depends on YOUR skill. This is the hard part to figure.. If you take average industry skill you would never invest.. it's poor.. and it include of course the money factor.. big money improves average skill almost to genius.. Pezim had poor geological knowledge.. he had the gift of money.. that made him spectacularly successful over time... IF Winspear keeps drilling in the NWT they will eventually find a diamond mine.. how much will it cost? I would say about 200 million given their skill level.. which is markedly poorer than many geologists I know. The highest skill level of any company in exploration was Texas Gulf in 1964. They found the greatest number of mines for the least money. They found seven major mines in about 8 years. With a horde more money, almost 1.6 billion in today's dollars, Thayer Lindsely, with Ventures, found 185 mines worldwide in about 20 years.. If you have great skill and no money forget it.. some prospectors we know have all kinds of juicy situations yet they will never make them mines..
If I had told you as I was tempted to do that Winspear would rise well, stay below 2 bucks and fall back as they had not exciting news.. I think I would have appeared as a great predictor. I chose a far more dangerous course and I feel the chips will fall where they should.. There is a whole bunch of things wrong with the biz and with diamond exploration companies and with people's investment in them. They are sucking money out of people where it is evident they do not know what they are doing. Canadian companies are very poorly educated in diamonds and the exploration for them. It is both very difficult and quite easy. I could fly a plane into the arctic and locate a 100 diamond pipes in one day. I know people who have done it. Other times it takes big bucks to locate them under overburden.. but there are ways to waste less time there too..
I am absolutely certain that even industry experts do not know how to find the pipes and they do not know how to test them for diamonds.. or economics when they do. 250 companies in Alberta and pipes coming right to the surface with glaring signatures and only Ashton has found pipes.. do you think they know something? well yes.. they might.. But far more important.. they are actually looking with the money necessary..
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