No. I checked that out. I can read. I see that Brewster got outed, or ousted.
It is probably less of a palace revolt and more of a get new blood to front the company. Even I might do that. You have to chase money and if your story gets weak you go for reinvention. Of course companies do get hijacked and boards do go off on tangents. It is as common as grass. You get dissenting board members etc. You also get new brooms. As a case in point a few people on this board know I put Shield Gold Inc. on the TSXV in order to look at properties in Northern Ontario and Quebec which had gold resources of some dimension. These properties came from some Lebanese people who I had known for about 30 years since well before the whole debacle with DeBeers/Selco/KWG began. In fact I had pointed the staking of the Magnet Mine to them, which got them going in Beardmore in 1979. I thought it might suit their mine building pretensions, as that was what their father had done for Rosario for many years in the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. They had pix of themselves sipping cocktails in the backyard of Mr. Somoza. Have to have connections to keep gold mines down there. Another haven for the CIA it seems. I had helped get their company financed and put on the TSXV thru the new Toronto based CNSX, then the CNQ. Some of the people who had helped us were in a private company I had formed who had deals in principle on a mine in Beardmore, once explored by Dome and Cyprus at one point. The other deal in principle we had was with the same family on a mine in Northern Quebec once operated by Lac Minerals at one half ounce of gold per ton. Both former mines had the same characteristic. High grade, drilled off to a degree to shallow depths, and access workings, indicated ore. This made them perfect for a flip into a company for value shares, and an RTO of a compliant CPC. The idea is to retain a control block worth of shares and retain control of the company. At least that was what I thought everybody would think was a good idea. I raised $250K in my pricvo for that purpose and basically as an agent raised the other $250K to $300K for the CPC, and got them a broker.. but what a broker! Not good for 2 years it turned out. Got them another broker but something went wrong there too. It all was not to be as we later found out. Both the board members attitude about all those shares going out, the broker's intransigence about such deals, etc.. but what was everybody really afraid of? Too much gold in the mines? Too much money in stock support? That was rapidly dwindling too. Support in my privco for the public market had waned in the ensuing years as it had taken entirely too long. The people who had started Guyana Goldfields and owned a large interest in the first broker we went to had initially bought 9% of the company. I had worked for them in Timmins and Beardmore. In fact I had spurred the elder statesmen of their group to go into Beardmore many years before where he did a JV on a very rich gold mine with Teck Corporation. That property eventually fell to the family so mentioned who had interest in the Beardmore area for 30 years now. They had once JV'd with ACA Howe. Peter Howe was a famous engineer from Royal School of Mines who was a WWII pilot. The father of the Lebanese family who owned the mines in Beardmore had designed wings for aircraft such as the Spitfire which allowed it to turn inside the circle of the Messerschmidt fighters. This characteristic by more than a little, allowed for the terrible toll on the German airforce that they were able to inflict. In theory the Spitfire could not do it, but somehow in practice the pilots were able to effect this manoeuver.
The affair with the South Africans looking for diamonds in Canada was directly involved with the Politics of Angola, the division by the CIA of South Africa and the Boers realizing that they may lose their country and needed somewhere to flee to, which however rich was being blocked by the CDN liberals under Trudeau who were supporting the Angolan blood diamond revolution into SA.
The people who wanted control of the issue from the get go, got it. I.E because of the structure of a CPC the board controls it. They put the first $100K in. The second person after my geology professor Mitchell, to drill successfully in Canada for diamonds, drilled them for DeDeers in Kirkland Lake - J. Siriunas, (whose father worked for many years as a filing clerk for the RCMP) and who worked with Brewster at MPH for years... A board member of Shield and geological Engineer from U of T. Other investors in the company also were in Angola during its trouble period, but in a different capacity. Other investors in the company and some board members were consultants for the CDN government placing or readjusting immigrants into CDN society. For the last many years that means consultants for the Liberal government more or less, although they would have it otherwise in times of government change sans doot. Can't blame them for that. For the record I have been in vocal opposition to liberal governance since perhaps 1960, a fact not lost on Liberal Cabinet since my divorce lawyer was a rising star in the Cabinet, before a personal pecadillo a la Clinton brought him down i.e. Francis Fox. Fox took money from me on a case and did nothing for 1 year, which I complained about bitterly. He neglected to mention that he was against divorce. hmmm.. trustworthy sorts it seems.
Shield eventually ended up dealing on a property owned by Tommy Larson's Eloro of Bear Lake Gold fame. Now I am sure Tommy does not assay the rocks or even handle the core, but someone who does got him into trouble with his gold claimed to be present at Bear Lake. Another 'assaying' scam? Tsk. tsk. Tsk. The former Honcho of Northfield Minerals who once operated a gold mine underground in the Kerr Addison camp, where I had mined, was a good friend of Tommy's and CFO of Shield. Siruias and he worked out of their office for years. This can't be a coincidence it seems. They have run off with the company (Shield) to Quebec, where it seems the properties are much more attractive and grass rootsy. Acres of Pyrrhotite and Cobalt showings. Well who knows? Expensive to explore but at least nobody can deny there might be a mine hiding up there. I won't deny it, but don't ask me to guess at the probability. The important aspect is that they did not have to pay too much for the property. So no change of control. As a matter of fact with 12 million shares out, and 6 million in the hands of the broker's friends, none of whom we know, (the broker for the record did NOT want that..) no one in fact controls the company and after first financing (at 4 cents?) nobody ever will who is presently running it. (It will cost 2 million before Shield knows if it has more than grass and trees at LaGrande. I am sure the Greenstone belt is fecund, but peeling moss back takes money.) Some would have it with sufficiently uninteresting properties that control not a problem. Probably so until somebody could use a shell without smell, but money may be too. The formulas is if you have gems, you have to own them. If you don't then anybody can own garbage and debt, it don't matter. But the broker thought, thru courtesy of my last ditch efforts to get the company listed, thru one of his brokers who fed me drinks til besotted at the PDAC and Randy Miller (Inspiration Nickel), that he was getting the lion's share of a mine in North Western Ontario that had 700,000 ounces of 2 grams gold with 100 foot widths. Evidently not.
Public companies if successful are public in name only. Some friendly financing group has to control the money, and like the management or they will be gone in favour of someone who likes the money more. In Shield's defense they offered the broker fancy properties in Mexico with OGR type showings. Smolensky the Global honcho would have none of it. He had to finance it, courtesy of his 18 month exclusivity and that meant it had to be flow-thru. In this storm Smolensky couldn't finance a cup of coffee seemed to be what he was saying. Million ounce mines in Mexico that will cost 100 dollars an ounce and 15 million to capitalize? No way. 60 million ounce silver mines in Mexico drilled off at 14 ounces per ton, and 40 metres wide? Cheap deals? On strike with 3 million ounce drill offs and mining gold in Guyana? Not a chance. Shield Board was stymied in their reasonable offers to Global, and so was I. I think however my offers to the company were perceived as coming at too high a price. Heaven forfend if my private co. should get control of Shield. With buying in the market promised and control, who knows what might happen? A gold mine found? Developed? We can't have that. We would no longer be the boss. I guess my threat of streamlining the board had leaked to Shield had shaken the confidence in the Shield people that they were the apple of my eye. In fact I had sought out people to take another shell to take the properties as it looked after 3 years that Shield would never get listed.
If Shield ever got listed and the people were co-operative, I had put it down that an iff could be dealt with at that time. Real brokers had said they would support the idea, i.e. Pope and Standard who had a good reputation. But what was scarce at that time were board members. When I finally chased down board people, i.e. Stuart Jackson, a former head geo for Cominco, who had staked much of the Red Dog and drilled diamonds for that company in the 1970's.. and a former Canaccord broker supervisor who had a geo degree, the brokers had fled, shells disappeared and the market had collapsed.. 2008 was not a friendly year. We got caught in the downdraft ofthe US credit crunch. It started in earnest way back in 2007 but continued inexorably on. It seems we are living in the shadow of a financial nuclear explosion picking bits out of the rubble. but all those gold properties, gold at 1000 dollars and nobody wants to play. At least with a deal that will allow you to buy a cup of coffee out of the proceeds.
I have found out one thing. When people think they are getting fucked they are no longer fun to play with. And when they are getting fucked in their imagination even, they generally turn around and fuck everyone else nearby, like crazed and horny whales dying on the beach getting in their last turn at immolative procreation. When you form a company or a CPC everybody on the board has to be at the same human level, of the same mind, afford a realistic apportionment for connections, money and intellectual property all of which must march hand in hand, and they must know what they are doing in the financial public game and in the business they are doing.
Relying solely on outside expertise when they have no way of judging the truth of it, is a disaster waiting to happen. All too often our politicians seem to be in that game. We are lucky to still be living in a free country. We are living in a free country aren't we?
I have dealt with perhaps 1 dozen honest people who will pay on a handshake in this business. Out of 200 that ain't bad. 6%. Say, there is hope! The Lebanese family was one of them. They were also competent in gold mining and running companies so that they retained control. That ended in the debacle at Beardmore. They had a 30 year run, but could not keep the dream of small mining alive. It was getting too expensive and competent people who could pull down the money into narrow vein mining in Canada were fast disappearing. Miracle drill offs of fat widths did not seem to present themselves. I had seen the curtain of values at the Pan Empire in 1980 when Howe had it. I had trouble reconciling that palpable potential with what was turning up in Roxmark news anncouncements of drilling to the east of the mill. It was some watered down. Granted the Empire stuff was narrow vein. But very contiguous and continuous. Looked doable in 1980 and I still believed in it.
With the failure in implementation of the Moly, as narrow as it was, and it was a failure in method, not ore, then it sure nailed the coffin shut on Rox's dreams. The moly was in short shoots, from 65 to 150 feet long. You could not mine the whole thing 1400 feet long with careless methods and keep grade. The vein snaked in and out of the quarts into the wall rock. It would take very careful work and selection. A method had to be found to show the vein as minable. That was not attempted. Management at the time had a prejudice against hanging their hopes on Moly and stated that. Well nobody was saying the vein was the salvation of the camp, but effing it up in a Fabian way was not the solution to whet the appetite of the present investing crowd waiting to see results. Bad social engineering.
A few lousy holes in a mining camp of former 0.4 oz/ton producers is premature but in this financial climate no matter the price of gold, it may be permanently so. The former Honcho and I bitterly post mortemed that fiasco,and laid the blame on operations. You don't take dinner plate size chunks of moly and very old time but very accurate 2.1% assays by Cominco of the vein proper and turn them into 0.37% MoS2 by mining and milling it right. There was too much waste, too little control by too little engineering and a hasty jury rigged mill with a scant two week run. Barely time enough to get the mill tuned. The Mill manager Rick Roberts told me that they only operated right 7 days out of 16. The rest of the time the concentrate ended up on the floor. Recirc or not that had to flub up big. I think half the moly ended up in the tailings which had a distinct blue colour. Management blocked me from assaying the tailings. It seemed almost like the CIA blocking evidence at the Warren Commission. I think the Rhenium should be reassayed. As nuggety as any mineral Rhenium may only report to dozens of assays in the ore body. If the smelter isn't paying it, it's moot. At less than $20.00 Moly it is a project for tomorrow. I feel that mistakes no matter who is to blame should be quickly investigated and admitted. It does nothing for shareholder confidence to have the "what the #@%@#% happened" question floating all over the street and getting the usual smarmy answers. You have to know the whispers won't be smarmy. Nobody is going to lie for you. People only have so much patience. The main deal in a company that is not producing is to keep the money in. The money ain't stupid all the time. They didn't get their money by being idiots one must assume. No sense treating them that way.
Narrow vein mining is an art as much a science. Most people thought rather rightly that the underground personnel were simply not there and narrow veins, i.e. 3 to 8 feet, could not be mined by methods and technology today at any grade. You cannot mine them semi bulk, it is thought, and shrinkage is too expensive at CDN labour rates and especially in union environments. Hence the quick demise of narrow vein copper gold at Chibougamau. We knew where we could get about 2.5 million ounces of narrow vein gold at about 0.5 OPT to 1 OPT which, with technology may be mined, and with sufficient contractor availability.. the union at Campbell Chib blocked the hiring of contract labour and could not be trained to produce themselves. The 4 hour "work" day was in force. Grade of their showpiece gold mine which our friends had a royalty on, also suffered. Hoisted grade was down to 0.25 oz/T with the bravest long hole mini bulk methods. Better it seems to mine 15 feet of 0.12 oz/T bulk than 2 feet of 1 ounce and dilute it to 8 feet. Could it be restarted? The clock is ticking. Money in the financial circle is restrictive, and their vision to develop is critical. Either they want to mine or forget it. but at the end of the day a billion or two in gold and a ready made mill lying idle is tempting. Especially at 1000 dollar gold. Once caveat is we may have to hire fr. Canadians to mine it. I don know about dat. I don know if any of dem have seen anyting as modern as a Jackleg drill and NRT joiner steel. Might be iffy.
The hell with it. I would rather mine open pit gold in Guyana where one gram per ton is ore, since the cost is less than 3 dollars per ton to mine. You want to talk to skittish money and hear door slam, just mention South American mining. "Experts" abound who have never mined a dwt. of gold or even seen as much anywhere.
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