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- in reply to: How to Approach Thin Veins & Cost #3633
I’m glad to see the debate unfold and some historical perspective applied here.
One thing I would like to add is that in the last 40 years, gold has been abolished as money. Many gold mining projects have faced chronic corrections in the gold price as a result.
But prior history shows that gold was chosen as a monetary asset due to its perceived stability. (it only become unstable as large discoveries flooded markets 100 years ago.)
I would presume that this perception of stability is returning to gold as an asset, given the nature of the breakdown of financial assets, especially those associated with sovereign debt. The availability of gold is in decline, since no new discoveries of large gold deposits are know to exist.
A market corner is possible in gold, much as it had occurred in the oil price last year, though its still some time in the future. With a continuous rise in the gold price against all assets a central bank fix in the price of gold is also possible. (I assume it would be around $5k/oz. to eventually see a zero knocked off currencies around the world.)
I suppose the way to advance for this company would be to ensure that its shares are traded both in the pink sheets and the CDN venture exchanges. So far, its impossible to get a quote as the shares are unlisted.
I don’t think labour availability is really a problem if you have subcontracted labour as you would in the forestry sector.
in reply to: How to Approach Thin Veins & Cost #3634No one will ever corner the gold market. Hunt Brothers tried silver. Almost did it. Lawyers changed the rules by govt. action. Broke Hunts’ play. Gold held by too many ideologically challenged people, banks and countries. Gold mined makes world richer. Don’t agree with comment below that discoveries 100 years ago destabilized gold. World needs capital. Gold is capital. Look what FRD price change in 1934 did for production and stability.
in reply to: CDAA Conduct #3632Dear Michael Miller,
I have read your disappointment for the lack of equal justice
Under the law, thus giving special privileges to the prosecutor over the constitutional rights of the accused, thus allowing persecution of your corporation for their debt by making you pay for their failure to convict you on erroneous cause. They, in fact, should be paying you, for your need to defend your self and taking time to go to court and suffer the stress of their persecution, and the damages to your credit record for their failed claims.
This being a constitutional issue of government persecution of your rights, I think that it warrants a complaint to the United States Justice Department and a charge against the California Supreme Court and the Attorney General of California with Contempt of the United States Constitution for failure to honor your right of equal protection under the law. That such a failure by the California Supreme Court, if left to stand will cause unprecedented damages to you and to the rights of the citizens of California. It even represent an act of treason to the bias of a police state over a free state.Thank you
David J. Ingrahamin reply to: CDAA Conduct #3631STILL OF IMPORTANCE
Article One in the constitution of the State of California contains some relevant directives worthy of notice today. Section Seven (a) says, “A person may not be denied equal protection of the law”. My favorite language that the CDAA foursome abused, ignored and acted out is in (b), which says, “A citizen or class of citizens may not be granted privileges or immunities not granted on the same terms to all citizens.”
Lawyers practicing in California must become accepted into the State Bar Association, which creates a special class of citizens. California goes farther than most governmental agencies since its legislature put into law Standards of Behavior for members of the State Bar.If I had a rocket launcher
I would retaliate.
Why do I hesitate!
I have a rocket launcher.
Most men kill by the pen, ink on paper.
Soldiers kill with explosives.
Warriors kill any way they can
Any way they will
Any way they must.
Soldiers retaliate with explosives
Warriors retaliate with words.I knew all along, as did George, that our battle would reach the Supreme Count. Sadly, my California Court failed to recognize the importance of the law. Well, recognize the importance of the law. Well, three of the eleven failed as did one of seven.
In Hoc Sig No Vinces
June 1, 1876in reply to: Clips from Alleghany #3630Second day of sunshine in Alleghany. A series of cold storms swirled above the community, leaving piles of snow four to six feet high in places. Well, in two spots on the mine roads the snow was over twelve feet high. Have you seen the long snow sheds in the old pictures on the Sixteen to One? There was a reason for those structures and its all about snow. They all disappeared years ago.
When the mine started attracting new money in 1979 through 1984, the operators leasing the mine used the old buildings. The big shop no longer had the snow sheds and no one rebuilt them. You know what happens each winter. The snow slides off the metal roofs and forms a huge pile along the road. That’s the first big snow problem. When the new mill was built, the roof must be over 100 feet long and all the snow piles up on the road to the portal. It’s like plowing through a mountain. Reid says, “enough of this. Let’s build snow sheds before next winter NO MATTER WHAT”. Sounds like a good plan.
The roads are open, the power (which was off all over the area for several days) is restored and the underground inspection turned up no new problems except a shorted out phone line. The water level is where it is supposed to be, and the walls are not tumbling down. Maintenance never ends.
The board of directors held a meeting last Wednesday in Alleghany. The annual shareholder meeting is set for Saturday, June 20, 2009 at the mine. Plan for it now. The lackluster response Mike has received for funding opportunities is the biggest concern. A plan to authorize the creation of preferred stock to increase interest is under consideration. Approval must come from shareholders. Seems like a good idea for gold investors to work out an agreement with the company with added flexibility and customized terms.
Spot passed the $1000 mark. Mike is fine with spot at $800 or better. The demand for gemstone quartz and gold is high as is the price. Maybe the increasing spot price will move some lookie-lou into action in finding a good gold opportunity like the Sixteen.
Scoop, however, thinks the adventuresome risk takers disappeared with trillions of lost capital. Where are those titans of industry when needed? Hey, wake up! America needs you now financing our basic industries.in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #3629Spot Gold price per once
high: $1007. 20
Low: $969.70
Close: $993.20in reply to: Stock exchange listing #3628Stock goes up to .05 cents and on Friday someone gets 600 shares for .001 ?
Could be the same person or persons who did this a few years ago.
Not sure gold hit a thousand a ounce today,you would think somebody would at least give a dime a sharein reply to: Stock exchange listing #3627I know of a bunch of ways to make $5.03 and none of them involve “off-loading-stock-at-any-cost” interest in one of the greatest high-grade gold mines in the world.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #3626The bail out you have stated is pretty much the one that is being adopted for the existing distressed mortgage loans that the 50 billion will be used for.
It is also being reconsidered for the next bank bail out stimulus. This also includes a policy that the bankruptcy court are planning to use for a solution to over indebtedness by official ordering bank and the bankrupt debt holder to renegotiate the mortgage as you recommend.
Congress would like your input.in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #3625Last on gold tonight is $970.90 after hitting a high of $975.60 earlier.
Gold, with the exception of the US dollar, continues making highs in world currencies. The meltdown continues to pick up intensity all over the world as current bailouts are proving inadequate.
The most intelligent bailout of all seems to have never recieved any attention from officials. That bailout out would be to immediately reduce interest payments on everything for everyone and extend term periods. This would immediately put additional money into the private sector and create demand thus lessening the current rate of layoffs and bailouts.
Dumb ass statement of the day:
Alan Greenspan – “We’re not doing enough to help(some) US banks.”
I remember Greenspan saying during the battle with CFTC Commissioner Brooksley Born in Congress over regulating OTC derivatives, “the banks should be permitted to regulate themselves since they have done such a good job of it so far.” Greenspan needs to be put on the next space shuttle, he’s a buffoon of the highest order.
We need to get real as Martin Armstrong has said, what’s killing the American people is their debt obligations and the interest strangle-hold that the bankers have over them. Usury interest payment limits need to be capped at 10%. In some states they are as high as 27%, that’s what’s killing our economy. The system is all screwed up. Take for example the retired seniors who are practically getting nothing as interest on their T-bills who used to support their living expenses with that income.
If government had any guts they would close down all the banks that got us into this trouble in the first place and redistribute their customer accounts to the “good banks.”
Then the shareholders of the bad banks could proceed with class action suits against all the board of governors in those closed banks and personally recover what they can from those clowns.
As far as the toxic assets are concerned, the American people are already consumed part of them. Some part of the toxic assets should be pledged against the bankers homes after all their other assets have been divided among the shareholders that they screwed. Also, the government should extend long term deductions, to some degree, to all shareholders of the closed banks so that they can recover some portion of their orginal investments as the government’s colossal failure was to trust the banks.
Thanks Alan Greenspan, you POS.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #3624Gold’s last is $953.90, up $12.30.
The following was just reported at the jsmineset.com website:
It’s getting bleaker by the minute in Eastern Europe. In case you didn’t catch the latest from the Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, he warned at the weekend how a growing crisis in Eastern Europe could cause nothing less than a total collapse in the West, or as he put it: “If one spark jumps across the euro zone line, we will have global systemic crisis within days.”
Sinclair basically says that we have the big Wall Street investment banks and the big commericial banks to thank for this mess that they have delivered to the world via their out-of-control leverage and greed.
I looked at the monthly long term chart on gold tonight and it looks to me that we are in position to put a rhino horn in on the chart which means almost straight up to the $1288 to $1300 area.
The battle between the bears(the big commercial international bankers) and the bulls was fought between $900 and $700 and the bears are currently running for the hills with their tail between their legs.
in reply to: Stock exchange listing #3622The $.0001 a share is the most blatant criminal and unethical transaction yet experienced by this Company. A shareholder and stockbroker with a major brokerage jip-joint immediately notified me of the trade last week. Both of us are trying to get information about the seller/buyer/broker. I AGREE WITH ALL YOUR SENTIMENTS BELOW!
If the selling shareholder held the certificate, the Company could trace ownership and get answers. The shares are likely held in street name with CEDE or some other escrow company. I wrote the broker who keeps me up on pink sheets and suggested it could be a “friendly “ sale between related parties to create a tax loss. If someone wants to defraud the federal government, it could be like this. Tax fraud may be a way to get security investigators attention.
You and I know this is a travesty and so much crap. It makes me pause and wonder about manipulation across the board. The world’s stock markets are no longer carrying out the functions they were built around. They are no more than houses for gamble. Investment is out. Speculation is another topic. I want the ability to speculate. It requires intellect, hard work and commitment. That is how I was raised in California. I chose many years ago to speculate on the gold industry and specifically the Sixteen to One mine. I also chose to commit to the hard work of making it an honest venture. I committed my life.
Over the past thirty years I have witnessed many white-collar chaps abuse the trust they were given by one of the world’s great economic engines, a free, open and legitimate stock market for everyone with the heart and mind for action to join in the fun. You may remember my quote, “In many businesses they are called criminals. It seems in gold mining they are called colorful characters.”
Well, it is not fun anymore. It is not honest and it is not following the established rules of trade. Someone should lose his or her job because of the recent transaction of 50,305 shares at $.00-01 a share. Someone should face a courtroom’s judgment. Let’s work on it together!
in reply to: Stock exchange listing #3621I have contacted the Pink Sheets market at issueservices@pinkotc.com asking for contact information of their compliance department so I can lodge a formal complaint of my own as a shareholder. When I get the email address I will post it.
in reply to: Stock exchange listing #3620Rockroby
In your question to me, could you please clarify or be more specific?
Thanks
in reply to: Stock exchange listing #3619Rockroby
There is no automated system for the Pink Sheets market. You have to call your firms trading department and have them make the call to that group of market makers, if you can call them that.
in reply to: Stock exchange listing #3618Bluejay
Is it possible that the company itself put these stocks out their because their was none to buy?in reply to: Stock exchange listing #3617I think someone from the company should contact the Pink Sheets compliance department and lodge a complaint concerning the trade of the 50,000 share block of OSTO(Sixteen to One Mines OTC symbol) stock at $.0001.
Possibly, someone could even contact the SEC and lodge a complaint against the broker that would execute such a blantant and questionable transaction representing a customer supposedly in good faith. Good luck with that! I have a complaint in with the SEC dating back to August of 2007 and am still waiting to hear from their lawyers who either did, or did not investigate my claim.
The SEC is a pathetic organization. Recently, in front of the Congressional Financial Services Committee concerning the Bernard L. Madoff multi-billion dollar ponzi scheme matter, representatives of the SEC looked like a bunch of scared chickens just worrying about their own skins.
Not once did I hear any apologies to the families of, at least, two men who committed suicide for losing their entire fortunes as a result of the shabby to no action by the SEC staff of a submitted detailed complaint spelling out what Madoff was doing to his investors.
Welcome to the lawless land of America where cheating, stealing, lying and ineptness by regulatory bodies is the order of the day. Add all this up along with bankers who who are currently stealing from Americans with a straight face and one doesn’t have to wonder much why our country’s people consume more mind soothing drugs than any people on the planet.
When I was on the Pacific Stock Exchange as a bond and stock trader I saw orders come down to the floor that were questionable. I would immediatedly go back to the source of entry by asking some questions as to bond or stock description or to “check price.” If it were a market order and no bids were available, I would direct the broker representing the customer order to a better market or just go out and find a buyer with a reasonable price. Sometimes, I would call the treasurer where bids were lacking and ask if they were interested in putting in some orders or knew of anyone that might be interested in doing so.
In all my years of representing customer orders I never butchered an order for any reason, I just wouldn’t do it. I like to sleep at night.
Someone from the company needs to lodge a complaint against the Pink Sheets trader and the executing broker who committed this breach of trust. This matter needs following up as it obviously hurts the seller along with the shareholders of our company.
in reply to: Stock exchange listing #3616Tried all last week to bring it up,even put in bids for $1.05 and it would not take.That was on Etrade will try UBS this week.
I bring it up to a quarter and someone goes in and drops it down too .0001 not sure what is going on.
Etrade is a lot of fun,gives you more control & doing well with most of my gold stocks,Ameritrade is good too,easy to open and easy to get money in and out.
Lets get in their this week and get this stock moving up,I think mining companies are starting to get looked at and some have a lot of movement that may never produce,not sure whats going on with the Sixteen to One,even Sutter,Emgold & Bullion River get movement every week.And look at Western Goldfields they will produce 150,000 ounces this year.If this State would open up 100 gold mines & go after are oil and natural gas we would not be where we are today(bankrupt)
Rotten politicians and now Nancy wants to do to rest of the Country what her and her kind have done to California.in reply to: Stock exchange listing #3615Crime of the century???
50,000 shares trades of our stock trades in the Pink Sheets market for $5.
in reply to: How to Approach Thin Veins & Cost #3614Rick and bluejay –
I agree with both you.
Let’s get rid of the debt while gold prices are still near record highs.
And then let’s go ahead and rebuild the collection on debt-free terms.in reply to: Stock exchange listing #3623There is interest in the sale that took place on February 12, 2009 of 50,305 shares at $.0001 a share ($5.03) beyond my expectations. I just sent the following reply to a well wisher who took notice of the sale and wrote me. I answered as follows,
Dear Alex,
Thanks for your comments. I’ll send you (as an insert) hard data about the company and its plans. This information is on the web site. Pay particular notice to the real value estimates. The assessments were completed before the housing collapse. I have no idea its affect on the company’s fee simple ownership for standing timber, water rights, large parcels of desirable recreational land and properties that have produced two billion dollars of gold.
There are no reasons for shareholders and/or their stockbrokers to behave so unfamiliar with the Sixteen to One as you suggest, “someone thought to unload your stock at any price” has any merit. I am experienced adequately in both our company and the machinations of stock markets to say this. Something else is going on.
I truly appreciate your letter and hope the following is received with the positive energy it is sent. You write that you are not a shareholder (as others have who also express your sentiment of interest) but who may become “a possible future stock holder”. I ask you this. Would you be in favor of some individuals or companies conspiring to trash the value of Sixteen to One shares? The current prevailing attitudes about this “trade” last week are: destroy the share price and even the company or tax evasion.
I interrupted a Google search of the United States Treasury division of the Internal Revenue Service to answer your letter. I am planning a letter to the tax criminal department. The tax evasion scenario is simple. Party A sells 50,305 shares for $5.00 to Party B and writes down a loss, which offsets some of the billions gained from short selling the market. The government stopped short selling (odd if it were not a concern). I forgot an important point; Party A and Party B are friends so no real exchange took place. I think it’s called a conspiracy, may even be illegal.
I disagree with some of your other observations but will enjoy a discussion. Write me again because it may be mutually valuable. Michael M Miller
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I can tell in the brief time we all have become aware of this public injustice, it has legs and must be pursued from many fronts. This may be only the tip of an iceberg. Use this Forum or write me directly if appropriate.in reply to: How to Approach Thin Veins & Cost #3611Our corporate vessel has a leak in it. We need to fix the leak before we can move on with anything else. We need to eliminate our debt and stop our shareholder blood letting in the form of continuing counterproductive interest payments. Until the board accomplishes this, I think discussing technology will prove to be futile.
The country is in the very beginnings of another Great Depression. Will the board please wake up and smell the coffee.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #3613Last on gold is $937.50, off $4.40.
Another great article on money, debt and interest:
in reply to: How to Approach Thin Veins & Cost #3612First, thanks for writing back Hans.
Second, Bluejay, as always, direct and to the point.
I am encouraged that the current collection is now on sale as individual pieces. I’ve brought this up, many times, that the collection is worth selling (whole or in pieces)to establish a new solvent direction, debt-free to create a new collection that may just surpass what is current.
Let’s remember that the current collection of gold specimens was accomplished with balanced books.
in reply to: How to Approach Thin Veins & Cost #3610Here is my reply, Rick.
In the first place – I am not offended at all, Rick. We are all expressing opinions and here is my opinion in more detail.
In my judgement, the most cost effective way to exploit the Allegheny Vein System would be to repeat the success, that was achieved in the mid-nineties with the arrival of electro-magnetic detection devices.
Technological progress has been made since then. And more will be made in the future. It should now be possible, to create detection devices with a larger range and an improved signal recollection.
That is one approach that I would like to see pursued.As soon as better detection gear becomes available, the neccessary funds for further development can be raised by collecting more gold inside the existing workings and selling them in the market-place. As bullion or gold-laced quartz-cristals or any other marketable form.
That is what I mean by relying on own forces. Let us pitch in our talents and skills to create better detection gear and put it to use without a lot of capital expense.
I’ll check again tomorrow to see, if that has answered your question, Rick.
in reply to: How to Approach Thin Veins & Cost #3609Hans, it’s instructive that you are reading our responses. In case you didn’t notice, allow me to point out that I, for one, disagree with your notion that wiating on the sidelines has any merit at all.
I’m sorry if that possibly offends, please understand that it is not meant personally.
It just didn’t make sense to me. For the mine and investors to wait around, as perhaps you read in my previous comments, one has to wonder…wait for what?
Let’s move ahead instead.
I’d like to ask you and hope you answer:Given the historical success in both recovery/ton and this mine’s unique potential, why did you write what you did?
in reply to: How to Approach Thin Veins & Cost #3608I would like to thank every writer for presenting his own view on the subject of cost-control in hard rock mining in the Allegheny Mining District and how to best exploit this truely amazing vein system.
Relying on own possiblilities is a successful strategy in difficult times. Don’t spend money or pledge valuable assets against credit. Rely on own talent.
Get rid of existing debt that might strangle the property as soon as gold prices start to decline for some unforeseen and unlikely reason.
And wait for better chances to raise capital for new develepments from proceeds of the mine itself.
If the only thing that used to be sure at the Origsix in the past, was the fact that the next winter season will arrive, there may be another thing that will prove true in the future as well. Technological change will happen.
in reply to: How to Approach Thin Veins & Cost #3607Hans, don’t know where to begin but here’s a start. Development is the answer for the Sixteen to One mine. Working capital is the issue, not line item costs.
There is no known gold deposit on earth more richly endowed with gold than the Alleghany Mining district in California. It’s focus is a long lasting producing company of consolidated mines with reported production from 1854 to the present (over 1.5 million ounces), mines with different claim names but all included in this small northern district under one ownership. You must read and study two important statistics that Mike posted under the NEWS heading: “What is a High-Grade Gold Mine” and “High-Grade Pockets Found in California”.
Let me start your study with “What is a High-Grade Gold Mine” first. The numbers span a twenty-year history of only high-grade reported production. The percentage column shows the percentage of total production came from separated high-grade. The remainder of gold (to 100%) came from the low-grade mill run. Look at the first two columns, total ounces and pounds of ore. It is POUNDS OF ORE! It is not tons of ore. The grade is 1.25 ounces per pound! Not tons! This grade computes to 2,500 ounces per ton. The great major gold producers today measure their gold assay at grams per ton. A grade of .03 per ton brings them bragging smiles. Wow, the Big Boys only needs to mine 100 tons to get an ounce of the yellow stuff. A 100 tons of ore at the Sixteen to One statistically yields two million five hundred thousand ounces of gold. One ounce can be found in less than a pound of ore.
The size of all the high-grade ore during the twenty year span is about sixty tons. These miners break about fifteen to twenty tons per round, depending of the ground. The second column shows the actual ounces of gold for that year from high-grade or 165,512 ounces of fine (.999) gold. Statistically the twenty-year production could come from four days of mining. Well, that is very unlikely or is it?
Study that chart. Put dollars to the numbers and then today even at a gold price approaching the $1000 per ounce stratosphere, this Sixteen to One gold has a market value far greater than the spot price. (Mike doesn’t mention this too much but specimens bring two to ten times spot and the gemstone market sometimes brings more.)
Is this just a crazy dream of people, sometimes called gold bugs? Has all the gold from the mines owned by Original Sixteen to One Mine been mined already? For the answer, ask any geologist familiar with the property. Now go to NEWS and look at “High-Grade Pockets Found in California”. Number one was over 83,000 ounces. It is right off the 800-foot level. In fact the miners walk or ride past this pocket regularly. Mike doesn’t publicize everything about the mine. How could he, there is so much information; but maps are available that show the trends of the pockets, the size and more. A dreamer, no; a visionary, no; a trained eye can make credible projections about the future for mining in this one of a kind high-grade gold mine. If anyone doubts this, look at the notable gentlemen who financed or worked in Alleghany, who succeeded in finding gold. Gold bugs? Humbug, they were businessmen, adventurers and gold miners.
Statisticianin reply to: How to Approach Thin Veins & Cost #3606Today I listened to Jim Rogers state on a recent YouTube interview that because capital markets are so tight that it will be another 13 to 14 years before a major mine is constructed again.
With the government intent of capping the gold price in the $920 to $925 area, how much longer will it be before the $1000 area is breached again when general attitudes about investing in gold mines chnages to positive?
With the DOW Jones Averages appearing to lose footing in the 7900 to 8000 area, it appears gold stocks, because they are stocks, may suffer if the DOW suddenly starts cascading downstream again. What I am saying is enthusiasm for investing in gold stocks may take a hit in the coming weeks, to a month or two.
I don’t believe we can rely on outside help until gold gets firmly placed over $1000 an ounce or until the gold shares move much higher. Too much propaganda has been pushed against gold and gold shares as an investment by the banking controlled media.
Why can’t we get contract labor back in the mine and cut these guys in for a percentages of their finds?Also, let’s lower our selling prices on our gold specimens to market levels where transactions can take place in an attempt at reducing our debt and getting labor back in the mine hunting for gold again.
in reply to: How to Approach Thin Veins & Cost #3605Rick
I agree,we need to get the stock moving in the marketplace.If people see more movement they will go to the website,see the gold this mine can produce and maybe say hey I want to own a piece of this mine.If given the chance Mike can and will find the biggest pocket ever found in the mine.Lets give him that chance he deserves it.The stock went up .24 cents a share today lets get in their and put in bids & tell all your friends to do the same.
Thanksin reply to: How to Approach Thin Veins & Cost #3602My understanding is that management has embraced advances in metal detection for some time now as an R&D priority, perhaps having already run up against practicality limits. Sophisticated technology like robotics, to be differentiated from remote-operator control (available now), won’t come knocking at the door…such innovation arises from necessity, a compelling reason to change the way things are done. In the presence of inexpensive substitutes and entrenched industry practice, the hardrock niche remains too small to warrant expectations of a complete, integrated solution anytime soon.
An analogous situation plays out before our eyes now in the debate over economic stimulus measures. Billions in aid for ‘education’ is the issue, brick-and-mortar capital projects to create jobs and train people for better jobs, etc., yet our leaders ignore the carbon footprint aspect to bringing students to such schools each day in order to learn, and more importantly, that for a decade now, jobs have been going to places like China and India where the Internet enables folks to sit in virtually on lectures given at MIT or Harvard by the very best at their discipline. Does anyone hear calls from Washington for developing home-study via Internet as a serious alternative to hiring more ‘teachers’ and building more classrooms? It would seem that teacher’s unions and vested interests will prevail, our newly minted graduates left to wonder at competitive realities which ‘outsource’ brain power from abroad, much as is the case too in resource extraction labor economics.
My recommendation is to aggressively pursue solutions conceptually, relative to specific challenges at the 16-to-1. My other recent posts on the ‘thin veins’ thread about thermal fragmentation methods as an alternative provide bait for the curious, even as the veins at Alleghany may be 30 ft. thick in places. A couple of years back I wrote to Mike and he phoned back to discuss remote-operator controlled methods, something clearly beyond budget practicality at the time, yet as things are with ‘maintenance’ status at the mine, necessity as mother of invention begins with finding better ways, which in themselves could attract investor attention.
Rather than give away the shop posting more tech ticklers on this forum, it would be nice to see if this thread can stimulate discussion regarding strategic investments in R&D as a managerial imperative over incremental production targeting, towards maximizing shareholder value. Now that zero-emissions monitoring standards couple with worker safety ‘best methods’ practice as socially responsible investment criteria, especially in today’s capital markets, anything less remains clouded by perceptions of unpalatable risk, which is why Origsix languishes in need of capital infusions. Beyond defensive measures, per your suggestion, to protect and ready the 16-to-1 for beneficial innovation to come, contemplating such alternatives available today also makes sense, doesn’t it, in seeking data useful in arriving at meaningful cost/benefit capitalization estimates for future production scaling via creative new application solutions, as a way of amortizing anticipated R&D over longer terms?
If you build it, they will come, and like Tom Sawyer’s fence in need of whitewashing, players will arrive for their own reasons, if management is clever in forging alliances with component providers who clearly perceive a positive stake in expanding their markets to the underground. If it’s the sizzle, not the steak, of reserves holdings facing ready markets offered up by management today, why not try adding tech innovation as a more familiar entrée to the back burner, or should that be the one up front? Investor appetite for geologic risk is renown, measured still in g/ton and share prices, and so it also goes with such estimates of market size and share, so remove the unsavory other risks from the mix with improved designs, and capital should arrive to make a meal of your core asset, tempted too by demonstrated leadership in innovation and ancillary revenue potentials from commercialization of promising ideas elsewhere.
in reply to: How to Approach Thin Veins & Cost #3604This latest discussion on cost anaysis, new innovation robotics, yet-to-be-proven and still conceptual modern metal detection devices, side-line sitting (perish the thought) all bring to light a huge question that I need some help understanding:
How is it that many millions of dollars, and actually millions of ounces of highgrade gold, have been mined from the veins of the Original Sixteen to One vein system, whether micro-vein or the thirty-foot foot-wall to head-wall potential…how did this happen without all these new theories?
It seems to me that the best cost-control is to go mining NOW, the effective way the mine has historically been successful. Get in there, break rock, muck, break more rock to find the pocket, use the best technology now available to identify the most beautiful gold-in-quartz on the planet, bring it up and cheer; go back, do it again, true methods in place.
It has baffled me that investment potential must be sitting (waiting?) on the sidelines for something better to come along. The double-jack did the job and nobody was sitting around waiting for pneumatic drills. The true potential is just sitting there with an amazing successful historical outcome for all to see.
When (not if) technology advances and more cost-effective method shows itself as a viable alternative, upgrade.
This procrastination is like wondering if the baby should ever need to have a bath…and waiting around to see if someone can come up with a better bathtub.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #3603Gold $896.10 off $15.30
The following link is another masterpiece done by the Comex crime fighter, Mr. Ted Butler.
in reply to: How to Approach Thin Veins & Cost #3601The Drill-Blast-Muck sequence is a well-proven but labour-intensive way of mining. The feast or famine experience in following a vein may yield a rewarding experience for true gold-bugs on a team of share-holders, managers and miners. It is not the type of investment that people will want to get into, who are weighing the odds of r.o.i. strictly on the basis of cost and yield expectations.
In my judgement, the best bet for Origsix to control the cost of future gold-production in the Allegheny Vein System would be to wait for significant improvements in technology – namely non-destructive gold detection technologies over larger distances and remote-control mining robots.
In the meantime focus on eliminating debt and interest payments through the sale of all assets exept the land and the production and processing equipment.
Go into hibernation status and stay on the maintainance only mode until a major technological break-through surfaces. It may be just around the corner.
in reply to: Clips from Alleghany #3599Missy the Mine Cat
One morning approximately eleven years ago, I was sitting here at my desk in the Sixteen to One office. Mike’s truck pulled up and he came running in. “I caught a kitten in my raccoon trap”. (Having raccoons in the house gets old fast. They wash their food in the toilet). “Oh” I replied hardly looking up. “What should I do with it?” he asked. I said “You can call animal control and they will take it”. As Mike runs back to his truck he says over his shoulder: “Maybe you should take a look at it”. I knew what that meant. In comes Mike with his “raccoon trap”. He sits the trap on the floor and peering out at us are two bright green eyes. The kitten is a tortoise shell with white feet, a white chest and strikingly long white whiskers. Mike says, “Maybe we should try having an office cat”. At the time Mike’s black cat Blondie was a senior citizen and a kitten would have been too much for her. (She already had raccoons to contend with). Skeptically I agreed; we could give it a try. We let the kitten out of the trap and she was WILD! Not feral wild (she would let us hold her) but freaked out wild. She was jumping around knocking papers off my desk, racing around, and hiding. This wasn’t playful wild, this was scared wild. We knew she might need time to adjust so we just tried to hold her and pet her. Near the end of the day Mike went home to get a litter box and some cat food for the kitten. About twenty minutes later he came back with ANOTHER kitten. This one was a gorgeous calico. The first kitten was delighted to see her sister. (Both kittens were girls.) We just laughed to watch them play and of course both cats ended up calling the office home. The Calico we named Doré and her sister Missy . They had distinctly different personalities. Missy was the most social. Social is an understatement for Missy’s behavior! Later we thought we should have named her Velcro Kitty. Every visitor who walked in the office door was greeted by Missy’s persistent affection. If she could get close enough to your face she would gently pat your mouth with a soft paw.
About six years ago Missy began to lose weight. After many visits to the vet, her problem was still a mystery. Further diagnostics would require a trip to the big city and $1,000 just to get started. We decided against that and fed her a special diet not expecting her to live much longer. About two years ago Mike, now catless decided to take Missy home where she would not have to compete with Doré and the latest addition to our office cat family Felix. (Another story.)
Sadly last Friday on January 30th Mike rushed Missy to the vet because she seemed a little worse. The vet put her down. Mike brought her back to Alleghany and gave her a proper burial last Saturday. Kitty heaven for Missy is a lap to sit on and a hand to rub her head FOREVER amen.
in reply to: How to Approach Thin Veins & Cost #3598Part of the problem at present is viewing labour as a liability, imo. Certainly there are liabilities in operating machinery that breaks down chronically in a mine, mostly due to rock chemistry.
The primary driver of an anti-labour culture is the collapse in value of the currency. Labour is ‘worth less’ because the value of that productivity has declined, not because those performing the task at hand are inherently faulty, or a perceived ‘workers conspiracy.’ If anything managements are obdurate and work to rule by comparison.
An interesting macro economic is forming, though should currency firm under deflation along with gold prices. This favours a labour solution.
Thank you for the suggested reference, I will look it up.
in reply to: How to Approach Thin Veins & Cost #3596Wow. Very intense, Mark!
From my own experience, I can attest to a niche labour market in the resource sector which can provide workers capable of doing the same work without resorting to using mechanized production methods where physical labour is warranted.
I have worked in the silviculture on contracts in B.C. and Alberta and I can vouch for this group of labourers who can produce far in excess of the light standards you would find in the larger society and urbanized areas. Of course, they make a lot more, but they produce more:
http://www.brinkmanforest.com/?p2=/customcode/brinkman/news.jsp&id=233
If the problem is labour, then a reassessment of the labour cost vs. productivity equation has to be assumed to make narrow vein mines work.
F6
in reply to: How to Approach Thin Veins & Cost #3597Am surprised at your attention to labor vs. automation economics, Fransix, after your inquiry about robotics. Thin veins by nature challenge the economics of driving a stope big enough for people and heavy equipment to access profitably, so Rocmec is advancing a new standard for mine architecture in working DOWN on narrow-vein deposits, reducing gange rock removal costs by up to an order of magnitude. Please be sure to look at their website .pdf about how this approach lowers labor and other mine overheads.
Over it’s useful life, capital equipment such as a conveyor belt vs. manned mucking can easily beat Paul Bunyan at the bottom line, also eliminating risk from unfortunate safety incidents which keep labor overheads high here in CA. As with mainframe computer makers during the advent of PC’s, the larger players who have tested automated approaches seek to protect their R&D and price their equipment accordingly, so small hardrock operators can only await someone to integrate things underground on a PC platform, to function as do automated warehouses above-ground. Skilled workers will always be needed to service equipment and perform geologic evaluations, yet the advantage to 24/7 production scheduling around those constraints using remote operators remains compelling, many new job definitions to come about eventually.
Any perceived ‘intensity’ is merely a measure of the vacuum of awareness being filled suddenly: here’s another clue…search ‘microwave drill’ to see promising test results in cutting rock via these means. Could an array of recycled oven magnetrons weighing but a few pounds come to substitute for jackhammers? The notion of cutting stopes just wide enough to accommodate metal detectors, leaving in place barren ores, has great appeal as a way to minimize the amount of material which must exit the portal for processing.
Thermal methods are touted within independent studies as capable of reducing overall industry energy consumption by as much as 50%, so the better mousetrap has arrived given multiple economic incentives. Mines like the 16-to-1 which languish in need of attention from capital markets may find newly curious investors if such cures are embraced, yet are Catch-22ed so far as raising funds for R&D along high-tech lines. Our tiny market niche has yet to garner attention from equipment vendors towards mineral resources invisible to balance-sheet recognition as things stand in conventional mining due to perceived risk, a hurdle which will continue to send capital towards open pit and offshore projects until, as in the halcyon days of mining innovation a century ago, someone simply builds and demonstrates the innovation.
These posts are meant to attract attention from parties wishing to conduct operational risk/reward audits to updated ‘state of the art’ technical assessments at individual mines (each is different), with a goal of bringing together all who share a vested interest in seeing high-tech products emerge soon to above-and-beyond safety and environmental standards. To your point on perhaps reassessing the role of labor relative to enhanced means, it’s all about how you view the problems when thinking in terms of human resources. As an example, hearing problems are unavoidable in mines, and much grant money is available to come up with ways to prevent hearing loss underground beyond headphones, the ‘state of the art’, yet nowhere is such funding support available for integrated solutions to remove workers to quiet working environs outside the portal via networked remote-control means.
Some may say this is due to reasons political, to protect skilled mining jobs, but in truth it’s because networking tech is off-the-shelf now, grant money for that spent decades back at the dawn of the Internet. The underground will always carry avoidable risks, but how hard will labor with it’s vested interests, or governments push to change the status quo? Is the future there really so difficult to imagine when hardrock ‘tech’ has remained essentially frozen for the last 50 years?
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #3595Jake Towne from GATA has prepared an informative article recently submittred to their website. From Rubin, Summers, Geithner and Gensler to the gold price suppression game to a great cartoon of Rothchilds’ stranglehold on all the inhabitants of the planet.
Check it out.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #3592During his first ten days in office President Obama has made several wise decisions. That gives me some confidence, that the problems of the US-Banking Sector will be adressed wisely too.
I have read his book “Audacity of Hope”. Obama wants to lead. And since the financial crisis started in the US, Obama would probably like to lead the financial world out of this crisis by decisive action in the US.
Maybe next week we will hear more on the subject. - AuthorPosts
