 Wallace Street Journal
Leaving Las Vegas
David Bond
Editor, Silver Valley
Mining Journal
Sep 13, 2004
Las Vegas, Nevada -Sort of a back-to-school homecoming-game
gathering, this International Investment Conferences confab at
the blurry Mirage Hotel and Casino on Lost Wages' new Strip,
where ersatz volcanoes erupt amidst ersatz palm trees in an ersatz
grove whilst an ersatz band lip-syncs to its own CD covering
the 1970s' greatest hits in a skyline that includes an ersatz
Empire State building, an ersatz Chrysler building, an ersatz
Eiffel Tower and an ersatz Reichstag whilst we choke on ersatz
air, contemplating the white (sign of purity) tigers or lions
or whatever lollygagging in their ersatz lair that are purported
to have mauled Seigfried or Roy but quite frankly look too bored
or stoned to pounce with any authority upon an errant rat. What
a metaphor for the Fednote, eh?
Meantime, whilst we weren't looking, they moved McCarran Field
from the rural fringes to right downtown. We used to visit Lost
Wages with a modicum of frequency in our capacity as corporate
grunt for the late, not-so-great Sunshine Mining Company, back
in the early 1980s, when Sunshine had a silver mine and mill
at Silver Peak - the old Sixteen-To-One. That would have been
a profitable mine - at $20 silver, anyway. Like every other endeavour
of Sunshine Mining Company, Silver Peak sucked resources and
energy from the mother ship up here in the Silver Valley for
the sake of glossing-up the annual report and making the Texas-hedgers
look good on paper. Bastards.
They did it again and again, kicking the old girl with one botched
effort after another to dilute the Sunshine Mine's importance
until finally busting their pick in South America - all just
to show Idaho miners where it was at. But lady Sunshine got her
last laugh, didn't she? Those bums are all dead and gone and
bankrupt, never to despoil another lode, while the Sunshine Mine
finds herself at the dawn of a new age in the care of loving
hands.
 The usual gang is here, and after a
summer's drought bereft of rumours, tips and gossip, it is good
to see them. Three usually welcome faces, however, are missing.
321 Gold's Bob Moriarty left his bride Barb at home in Florida
to contend with the hurricanes, thus we had no-one to sneak outside
with, cigarettes in hand, and conspire with against the serenity
of the assembled madness.
Absent, too, was our own Better Half, who grumbled something
about having to work in Wallace half-days all week turning silver
into photographs ("Any 12 hours a day will do. Run off and
play, you rummy; somebody has to work around here!").
Most conspicuous of all in his absence was Timothy Wood, erstwhile
Americas editor of Mine Web, who the Sunday before the Wednesday
show-start chucked his job with the South Africans - somewhat
in a snit, we gather - to sign on with Sandy Lawrence of the
aforementioned International Investment Conferences, Inc., to
create an educational program. Young Tim's iconoclastic and aggressive
reporting on the industry will be hugely missed. We speak from
the experience of a working relationship: Timber was a fine copy
editor, an exquisite wordsmith, and had a nose for a good story
nonpareil. Another boom-bust cycle or two under his belt, and
he will come to see that the emperor has no clothes, and to respect
the rantings of Ted Butler and Bill Murphy, and to appreciate
the front-row seat we mining and metal writers have to witness
the titanic battle of the ages between the moneychangers and
the real men. And maybe by then he will have read the Craig Copetas'
book, "Metal Men: Marc Rich and the $10 Billion Scam."
(And unless you have read Metal Men, please don't engage us with
uninformed conversation.)
A few tidbits garnered from the assembled: IIC has recovered
nicely after the London debacle May last; folks happy with last
June's NY show were even happier in Las Vegas; Hecla's Vicki
Veltkamp noticed more than usual new faces asking about the venerated
Idaho silver miner; Silver Standard's got a buy-everything order
in for $5.75 silver, informs Bob Quartermain, seriously doubting
he will ever have to exercise that option because below that
it's cheaper in the ground.
The consensus, in the elevators, the sushi bars and the seminars
and on the convention floor, is that the upcoming United Snakes
presidential election is irrelevant.
If Kerry wins, the Dow enters a graveyard spiral, and Fednotes
and fundtickets will chase gold and silver to dizzying heights.
If Bush wins, the piper gets paid and Greenspan's pre-election
largesse will be rewarded with a vastly accelerated inflation,
and Fednotes and fundtickets will chase gold and silver to dizzying
heights. If Bush wins, the war in Iraq will continue. If Kerry
wins, the war in Iraq will continue, only differently. No-one
dares speak of a culture clash or of the Crusades' ultimate dance.
If Kerry wins, Fannie Mae will collapse, taking Freddie Mac with
her; if Bush wins, Freddie Mac will collapse, taking Fannie Mae
with him. If Coeur d'Alene Mines prevails in its hostile takeover
bid for Wheaton River, it'll be a good thing for Coeur. If Wheaton
prevails, that will be a good thing for Wheaton.
(Hang with us for a moment. This election has one bright spot:
the evisceration of CBS News anchor Dan Rather and the collapse
of network news hegemony. With the forged Bush fitreps and attendant
memoranda, Rather fell into the sucker's game. He wanted to badly
to believe something evil about Bush that he didn't check his
facts. That's a not uncommon happenstance in journalism; it's
what you have editors for, except that Rather is the Ultimate
Editor. Or should we say, Was. We earnestly pray that Karl Von
Rove set him up for that one.)
Helluva choice, eh? Oh well. We circle the chairs while the music
plays, forever attempting to divine the bandleader's precise
moment. At $6 silver and $400 gold, we haggle over the cheap
seats, afraid to take one. How foolish. What a bunch of sophomores
we are. One one-trillion. Two one-trillion. Three one-trillion
. . . As Sonny and Cher, once Lost Wages' top-billed act would
say, the beat goes on.
Yes, it was good to leave Las Vegas, to repair to the cooler
but saner air of the world's greatest silver district. And to
look forward to this evening, 13th September, where we will celebrate
the birthday of one Robert Hopper, owner of the Bunker Hill Mine
here in the Silver Valley, whose emergence on this planet 65
years ago was not so important as his appearance 14 years ago
here in the Silver Valley to reclaim from the Metal Men our mines,
and to return them to Mining Men.
There's a dart-board on every EPA and Teck Cominco and every
environmentalist bastard's office from Kellogg to Vancouver and
Seattle and Denver with Bob Hopper's visage on it, and he has
earned every one; by simple virtue of being a Mining Man, Robert
has acquired more enemies than Ivanhoe's got ounces of copper.
Yet tonight, Robert, Laurel, Shauna, Bill, Lynn, and I will repast
at Albi's steakhouse in Wallace to mark the passing of another
remarkable year, and we will pay for our dinner in silver 10-Sterling
coins.
Indeed, the beat goes on. Happy Birthday, mi amigo. We're not
dead yet.
Sep 13, 2004
David Bond
Editor: Silver Valley
Mining Journal
David Bond covers gold
and silver mining equities for a number of national and international
publishers, including Platts Metals Week, a division of McGraw-Hill.
He lives in Wallace, Idaho, heart of the planet's richest silver
fields, the Coeur d'Alene Mining District. He is former editor
of the Wallace Miner, and holds regional and national firsts
in investigative journalism from the Atlantic City Press Club
(National Headliner) and from the Society of Professional Journalists
(SDX/SPJ) and has edited or written for newspapers on both coasts,
Canada and Alaska.
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321gold Inc
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