To: Ptaskmaster who wrote (65 ) 4/21/1999 8:08:00 PM From: WWS Respond to
PT, I'm becoming skeptical. My rationale is this. Just look at all of the explorers that have suddenly started to focus on PGEs during the past two years. Conveniently, most of the potential PGE deposits reported to date are discovered "amazingly close" to the residences of the corporate principles, permitting them the convenience of spending weekends home. Another "coincidence" is that the 20 - 30 newly hatched PGE explorationists have come into being during the past two years when the price of PD more than doubled and now surpasses that of gold by $100/oz. The corporate promoters are well aware that former or still recovering "gold bugs" have lately been affected by a new strain of the old disease, the strain known as "palladium passion". Deep down I wonder how many of these promotions are as much interested in finding palladium as they are in selling us their discounted paper. Consider too the fact that the only two commercial deposits of PGE's in north america were discovered nearly 1/2 CENTURY ago! Seems to me that, just on a probability basis, one would have a much better chance of finding a commercial deposit of gold in north america than of PGEs. But then, gold is no longer "sexy," whereas PD is. I'd be very leery of any company that bills itself as a "pure" PGE play. So, the fact that FWR has both nickel and gold prospects, in addition to PGE properties, is one of the reasons that I do own a few shares. The same thing goes for HLM and its new tantalum deposits. But, fundamentally, I'm now quite skeptical that ANY of my mining explorers will ever end up producing a mine. Look at NWI to illustrate just how hard it is to find a mine even if 1) you have financing and 2) you've already discovered one hole containing "massive" sulfides. So far NWI has drilled 35 - 40 holes at $100,000 each and is no closer to a mine than it was after hole 1. So, when Flag says that it is drilling ONE hole, I'm just not impressed.
