➡ The article discusses the increasing influence of passive management and momentum in the financial world, particularly in relation to gold, silver, and equities. It suggests that this trend, along with the growing use of computer-based quantitative and technical analysis, is causing a rise in the prices of these assets. The article also mentions predictions of silver reaching $40 and discusses the role of silver as an inflation hedge and a critical industrial metal. Lastly, it touches on the impact of monetary policies and the relationship between physical and Comex silver.

➡ The discussion revolves around the current state of gold and silver markets, with a focus on the potential for a significant increase in their value. The speakers suggest that the current economic conditions, including high deficits and low interest rates, could lead to a major revaluation of gold. They also discuss the possibility of silver’s value increasing significantly, potentially reaching $300 an ounce. The conversation ends with the idea that gold and silver mining companies could become the new profitable investment, similar to bank stocks before the financial crisis.

➡ Western buyers are increasingly investing in precious metals, particularly gold and silver, leading to a rise in their prices. This trend is beneficial for investors in these metals, as it’s still early days for this market shift. The article also discusses the growth of Dolly Varden, a company that has been acquiring past-producing silver mines and expanding its land holdings. With strong financial backing and a focus on silver, the company has grown from a $20 million to a $400 million company, and anticipates further growth as the value of silver becomes more recognized.

➡ The company is aiming to reach a target of 200 million ounces of silver equivalent through a drill program. They plan to release a new resource estimate after this year’s drilling, which could be available by April, followed by an economic study. The company is also actively reporting results from the drill program, with results expected to start coming in by July. They are also open to communication with potential shareholders and have various ways to reach out, including an AI chatbot on their website.

A topic in the silver world that I think people have this underlying frustration about, and that really is that silver, we’re always told as an inflation hedge, yet we had 0% interest rates, quantitative easing for a decade while the silver price was getting clobbered. So we are going to unravel what actually happened there. Well, hello there, my friends. Chris Marcus here with you for Arcadia Economics. And quite excited because, as you can see, joined by my dear friend Sean Kunkan of Dolly Varden Silver. And today we’re going to dig into a topic in the silver world that I think people have this underlying frustration about, and that really is that silver, we’re always told is an inflation hedge, yet we had 0% interest rates, quantitative easing for a decade while the silver price was getting clobbered.

So we are going to unravel what actually happened there, which I think is an important part, at least as if you’re investing in the silver market or just observing it, having a con. I think it’s a small but subtle shift in context that could be extremely helpful in the years going forward. And who better to talk about this with than one of the executives in the silver mining industry who is going to be counted on to meet a deficit that not only has been going on for five years now if you include ETFs, but scheduled to continue going on, let alone if governments hit these green mandates.

Sean, so great to have you on here. And how are you today, my friend Chris? I am grateful to be here. I’m very happy. I was just. Just thinking back to some of our first conversations over five years ago and thinking about where the silver price was, where my company, Dolly Varden, was back in those days. And, man, a lot lots changed in the last five and a half years. Yeah. Well, as we’ll talk about, I know you’ve been uncle hunting it around in the Golden Triangle. I call Sean Uncle Hunt and one of the brothers or uncles of the Hunt brothers, and we will touch on that.

And Sean, like you mentioned, we have talked about some good things over the years. We’re coming up on the anniversary of the Sprott Symposium, which I believe you’ll be at next month. I will, yes. I will be looking forward to seeing you there. We can record again while we’re there. Last year, when we were there, you and I looked at, was silver really an inflation hedge? If you’re looking specifically to that $50 point, 1980, which is relevant, although I don’t know if that’s the best context for a price that was maintained for less than two full days.

Yet if you take those out and assume that maybe during times of extreme chaos, silver will spike like we saw in 1980 or 2011, and if you make that adjustment in your chart, all of a sudden it starts to look a lot more like the gold chart. So we will follow up on that. Although, quick look, we’re recording on Thursday afternoon here. And Sean, I remember last time you came up, I think the gold price was up $100. Now here it is up 60 bucks. We’re back over 3400. Perhaps we’ll have to have you as a daily guess if this keeps up.

But there is gold back over at 34. Silver had crossed $37 only the third time in history and back up at 36. As you can see here, tough times for the dollar index under 98 today. Bond yields still hovering in that four and a half range. But Sean, before we dig in, any comments on today’s pricing? I guess I haven’t known you when silver was above $36 before. So what would you say about this rally we’ve seen in the past week here? That’s interesting because, you know, it wasn’t that long ago, you know, measured in days, weeks where the ratio was 100 to 1.

And it’s nice to see us honing in on 90 to 1. And so it’s nice to see silver starting to outperform gold. It’s nice to see that the equities are also outperforming the, the metals. I think these are all positive indicators. You know, anytime you see silver lagging or the equities lagging, you know, it’s, it’s not a sign that an imminent breakout is coming. So it’s, it’s good to see. I follow the capital markets pretty closely and I could report that there is the financing activity in the space. One of the silver companies, one of the producers, Aya Gold and silver launched a $100 million deal.

And I, I’ve heard from some very good trusted sources that the deal was three times over subscribed and I think the company in a very disciplined manner agreed to only upsize by 25%. And so they’re, they’re taking $125 million. But Chris, we’re in an environment where silver companies, and we’re not talking Pan American Cool or First Majestic, but a Silver Co in Morocco is, got $300 million of investment interest. That’s one company. And so the, it’s, it’s a very interesting time. It’s a time where the industry is contracting, you know, there’s consolidation. All most of that consolidation is happening in Mexico where you’ve had, you know, Gatto, Silvercrest and now Mag all being taken over.

So I feel like we are, you know, in the early, early, early innings of a very, very interesting time as the dollar loses value as bids come into precious metals and precious metals equities. You know, you and I have been, you know, waiting for this for a long time and it’s nice to see it’s finally starting to begin. We didn’t have gray hair when we started, so that’s what we did. Sean, you touched on something that I did want to ask you more about. So I’ll do that now. With the AYA financing, have you seen that go across the board yet in terms of the equities or is it still especially on the junior side? I’ve heard for a lot of companies things are still not easy to raise financing.

Anything you comment on there? Yeah, I was on a panel yesterday with three other junior silver mining company CEOs and the comment I made, I track a lot of silver companies, almost all the listed Silver coast I track and what I’m finding is the larger the entity, so the primary producers, most of them are putting in 52 week highs which is a very positive sign. They’re way off their all time highs but they’re putting in 52 week highs. However, the, the, the next tier of companies, the, the juniors, whether they’re junior producers or advanced explorers, they’re trading in, in the middle range of 52 week high and low.

So you know they’re not, they’re not at the lower end of the range, they’re not back to there, but they’re right in the middle. And I think that’s sort of indicative of where we are in the cycle that that trickle down effect like the, the metal’s breaking out, you know, decade highs on the metal. You’ve got best in class also trading at a 52 we high. But the, the juniors, including my company are, there’s still a lot of value for investors where they can come in and they, they, the juniors haven’t quite caught the same level of bid and interest but they’re, we’re definitely off the lows.

Well, certainly going to be interesting to see how that unfolds especially given in the context of some of the things we’ll be discussing today about how we do have this deficit and might add. It’s also interesting when you think about the size of the deficit big factor because if we were short 10 or 20 million ounces, then maybe you launch a couple mil, a couple new projects. But I guess I’ll ask you this one, Sean. When you have a 200 million ounce deficit in the silver market, it’s, it’s not like, like, all right, well, these three projects, they’re going to crank out 50 million each.

It’s a little bit tricky to see where that actually comes from, even if the capital is there. Am I right? 100%. I was looking at a private company today in the silver universe, and they’re sitting on about a 500 million ounce resource, okay? Which is a big resource. And that’s a project that a lot of capital and development have gone into. It’s a past producer, and if everything goes well, they could conceptually start mining in 2028. And so, you know, what’s interesting is we’ve had five years of deficits, right? You’ve got mine output down to 800 million ounces on an annual basis.

You’ve got demand exceeding 1.2 billion ounces. Where are we going to get, you know, Maybe we’re recycling 150 million ounces a year on a good year. If the big projects are half a decade away from coming online, how do we fill that need? And, and one thing I want to mention here is, you know, people are asking me, Sean, why, why is silver breaking out? You know, the first thing I’ll say is, you know, I have two balls. But neither of them are crystal. No, but in all seriousness, you know, the structural deficits, the lower dollar, all the factors that have been here.

The one factor that’s new, Chris, is momentum, okay? And this is something we need to pay attention to because we are now in a universe where we’re in a, a passive, a passive management universe. From money management standpoint. We’re not in an, in an actively managed, you know, half the world’s capital is, is run passively now, okay? So in that universe where the computers are in control, they’re relying on quantitative and technical analysis, okay? And that analysis is heavily skewed and biased to momentum. So what I’m saying to you is now that both gold, gold equities and now in the last little while here, silver and silver equities have that momentum.

That’s why we’re seeing an acceleration in price. And if you go back 15 years there, as more and more and more capital is run passively, that momentum portion of, you know, is going to be even greater. And it’s why, you know, I think you know, we’re, I think, I think soon, maybe in the month of June, we’re gonna see forty dollar silver. You know, that’s a pretty bold call, but I think we’ve just like a hot knife through butter, have gone through some levels of resistance here and I just don’t, I don’t see it stopping anytime soon.

Well, Sean, I could understand those sentiments because as I’ll quickly highlight here, you’re not alone. We had yesterday our dear colleague Vince Lancy in his morning show had bank of America calling for $40 silver. And then today was UBS. So you could well be right. And of course, as we’re seeing how this unfolds, quick note, I might add that here front of cnbc, three reasons why tariffs have yet to drive inflation higher, I might add, despite Walmart already coming out and saying that their price are going up. Also, we’ll see if these inflation reports still come in below expectations once oil isn’t dropping to the $60 range anymore.

But of course, Sean, we have Trump calling Powell a numbskull today because he has not lowered interest rates. And again, Sean, as you highlighted, basically everyone in the Trump administration, well, maybe not everyone, but several of them, including Steven Moran, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, have actually actively talked about how their plan is based on a lower dollar and the problems with what they refer to as the current overvalued dollar. So we’ll have that all factor in yet to the main event. Won’t delay any longer here. And Sean, I’m going to get the silver chart pulled back up because as I know you well remember, Ben Bernanke introduces the world to something called quantitative easing.

I guess the Japanese had done it a little bit earlier, but so that was October of 2010. Then by April of 2011, we have a short squeeze there. Silver gets up to $49. Yet while the quantitative easing and zero percent interest rates continued for years. We see silver, Sean, 2013, let’s call it to 2019. Not the best of times in the silver investing industry. Am I correct? That’s one way to describe it yet. And not the best of times. But so now I’ll link to it perhaps at the end the last call we did a year ago where we talked about does silver still serve as an inflation hedge? And how if you could take the perspective that during times of crisis or panic in the system, such as we had in 1980 or many had following QE2, you see that.

But if you take these out, the smooth those spikes at, you get a Lot closer to the gold chart. Obviously cost of production is rising. So in terms of, and perhaps I’ll let you go first if you have any thoughts on this, Sean, but what would you say to someone who said, I hear silver is this inflation hedge here? We had money printing and it responded for a while, but then we see this. What would you say to that? Well, look, I, I, my view is gold is an inflation hedge, right? And what’s happened here is we’ve been in, in a universe where, you know, silver in the last hundred years has really, you know, its industrial use has become more and more relevant.

It’s gone from being a true inflation hedge to now 50% of the silver market is industrial. And so I think the world’s goto most liquid inflation hedge is gold. It’s what the kings go to, it’s what the central banks go to, it’s what the high net worth go to. And I think that what I really think silver is, is something where it’s a much smaller market than gold. You know, it’s, it’s a tenth the market of gold. And when the money does come in, it’s why you see these dramatic spikes. It’s, you know, that 1980 spike, that 2011 spike.

And I think what’s going to happen for this next spike as, and we’re starting, we’re, we’re starting to warm up for that move, a move I think that’s going to take us into the triple digits on this next spike as investors say, you know what, you know, I can get a lot more silver than I can gold and, and silver has lagged gold. We’ve got a 90 to 1 ratio. I think it, it is an inflation hedge, but it is one that is such a small market and it, in addition to being an inflation hedge, it’s also a critical industrial metal and with a growing use case and which I think is actually going to really even intensify and amplify that spike that we do, the inevitable spike that’s coming.

So it’s unquestionably a hedge against inflation, but it’s not the only one. And I think it’s not the go to one gold, it’s the go to inflation hedge, in my opinion. But Chris, I want to hear your take on that. Well, yeah, and I think that’s a very astute comment you make there. And silver perhaps maybe the more aggressive inflation hedge. Although Sean, you may remember this one, we looked at this last year with our new price. Actually, I’m getting this updated, but here in the blue line is if you tracked your $29 that was in the ounce of price of the ounce of silver back before it was taken out of the currency.

So the blue line is CPI indexed. Get to got to about 11 $12 versus the red line, the silver price which would now be up here so indicating that silver has outperform CPI inflation now by quite a bit. This line up here is M2 and you could say silver has some catching up to do there yet. Sean, I think the key distinction that gets miss and and certainly part of it’s in focus. People don’t like the COMEX system because things are traded in paper versus the physical where now and I would say that that mismatch over time is the kind of thing that leads us into a deficit.

And as an extreme example, let’s put it like this, let’s say the Fed comes out tomorrow, says we’re going to do a trillion of qe a year, 2 trillion. They’re going to take rates back down to zero and you get the reaction priced in the futures market. And let’s say silver just jumped to a silly number. Let’s say it went up to 200 bucks an ounce and silver miners thought that that was just going to be the price going forward. So you got more production, which we saw some degree of back in 2011, didn’t stay at 50, but was around 40 for a while yet.

The key part that gets missed is that we’re not on a silver standard. So it’s not like when you have stock market index and an etf, there’s an arbitrageable relationship. Those have to stay intact. And while there’s more money going into the system we saw over the past decade can go into the NASDAQ and go into real estate, the thing that was missing is that if you get a $200 silver price and all of a sudden there’s a lot more silver because of that production caused by the price, yet there isn’t an underlying increase. We didn’t have people, we had some more offtake on a retail level, but that’s the part that’s been missing and where this ultimately balances out because those have to match at some point.

And fortunately for silver investors, I would say now with the way this has developed, now we have the deficit and a price that is too low to meet the current demands of money and industry. Yet hopefully that puts in context because I think that’s the part that gets missed yet is important because if you understand that and whether we like the relationship between physical and Comex or not understanding how they interact at least helps to put the past in better context and also give a better framework going forward. Sean did that. That makes sense. It makes a lot of sense.

It’s a great point. Yeah. Nothing more to add. Chris. I, I think that, I think you, you highlighted that. Well, well, I appreciate that and I will give you the credit because that built on our conversation last year and some of these things that are getting increasingly important because as you mentioned, we have the deficits now. We have stockpile is dwindled in London. And Sean, I, I know you remember back in 2021 when we were talking about the LBMA saying they were weeks away from running out of supply had the demand continued at that level, had deficits since then.

And now we have a gold rally which I would suggest has been one of the key drivers and pushes silver back over 36 bucks while we’re watching a president call the Federal Reserve chairman a knucklehead, a loser, who knows what’s next tomorrow to get interest rates lower. So where does that leave us today, Sean, and summation of all of that? Well, it’s what, what you also have the president doing is, you know, I think he’s a very pro gold president and I think, you know, you’re, you’re hearing talk and action and movement towards a Fed audit.

I believe that you’re seeing. We’ve heard more talk than action so far, but I know there’s now a, a bill that, you know, either being drafted or actually moving forward here that’s gaining momentum. I saw that last week. But you’ve also, like with potential appointments like Judy Shelton to the Fed or potentially even as, as to lead the Fed. So I think we’re moving towards a, a major, major gold revaluation. And whether that’s at $5,000 an ounce, $10,000 an ounce, $20,000 an ounce. And, and the reason I have these ranges is it all depends on the printing, you know, on the deficits, on, you know, on what’s the strategy towards how do we, how do we continue to operate under the current conditions.

Like we’re at a point right now where the US Is spending more on interest than they are on defense. That is a pretty significant statement. So when I think about silver, I believe, and I’d have to look it up, but I believe we got to about 35 or 30 to 1 in terms of ratio silver to gold during the last bull market. Is that right, Chris? I will. Let’s see, we had 1900 gold over 50 silver. So that’d be 38 to 1. But actually if we think about it, when silver did go up to it was April, right? It got up to 50.

And, and in April, gold was only 1400. That’s true. Because did not get to 1900 until later that year after they were downgraded by S P. So ladies and gentlemen. Sean. That was the nice catch there. I like that. So if I were to take the 28 to 1 right now, that’s $121 an ounce silver. Okay? Now the fact that we’re not there yet on the gold market, the fact that silver hasn’t made put in that move yet, tells me we got a lot more ways to go in this precious metals bull market. Like the fact that silver’s lagged for everybody.

And Chris, we got to remember most, most people are coming, they’re new to this. I, if I didn’t have people like Pierre Lassond or Rick Rule or you know, some of the, the, the brave, outspoken Eric Sprott, right. If I didn’t have those people. We have to, we got you. And I have to remember there are people that are tuning in right now that don’t know this stuff, right? They don’t know the fact that there’s a natural relationship of 15 to 1 in the Earth’s crust. They don’t know that from a mining perspective that for every 7 ounces of silver that are getting mine, only 1 ounce of gold is getting mine.

So you know, you and I know this stuff. But the point is getting to 28 to 1 right now that’s $120 silver, right? But if I think gold could triple from here and that’s if all that’s if we get those this world in order. That’s me being an optimist saying, you know what, we’re, you know, we’re gonna, there’s going to be austerity, there’s going to be, you know, that’s assuming that the adults are gonna come back at some point and take control of this mess, right? And that’s a big assumption waiting. But let’s, let’s assume that the world doesn’t end because I’m an optimist, right? And neither of us want it to.

So I think gold, you know, is going to still continue as we get to that solution, become relevant and more money is going to be attracted to it. And historically, you know, globally, 2% of all money has been in precious metals. And less than 1%, less than 1/10 of 1% is today. So we got a long way to catch up to do. We’ve been in this environment where, you know, tech and other asset classes have dominated. You know, you just, just even the financialization of the, the world has dominated all these other asset classes that are so important and critical.

We’ve gone from placing a great deal of importance in things that aren’t real and have not placed in importance in things that are real, like food and agriculture and real estate and hard assets. And now we’re coming back to it. We’re right. And as we swing back into that, where do these prices go? And I really, you know, my target on gold is, you know, high 8,000. And it’s, you know, that’s where I think this gold price is going to go. And if we, if we do some math on where silver can be in that environment, like, it wouldn’t shock me if we went to $300 an ounce on silver.

And, and what’s, what’s so amazing right now about what we’re seeing in gold is the input costs for the miners are decreasing. You know, the cost of diesel, the cost of oil, the cost of just about everything, including labor has come off this last couple of years as the price of the metals are soaring. So from, like, it’s, it’s amazing. I, you know, I study a lot of minds all over and I see how profitable small minds that companies wouldn’t even entertain in the past are now cash cows. And what’s really interesting is I was looking actually at where some of the big financial institutions were, where some of the big investment banks were.

From a profit perspective, just before the great financial crisis, you know, where was Bear Stearns, the fifth largest investment bank? Where was Lehman Brothers? You know, I identified two that went under because they were so leveraged. But there are profit centers. And what I’m starting to see is the gold companies, okay, the gold companies and gold moves first, then silver. The gold companies are starting to make some of the money that the banks were making pre gfc. So, you know, if you want to know the new bank stocks get into the precious metals miners. That’s where.

These are the new bank stocks. Now, Sean, Sean, you got to say these, this is the, if you want the next Nvidia, that’s how you sell that. The kids don’t want bank stocks anymore. Etech, baby. Come on, man. That’s. Yeah, no, from back in our day. But the difference is this is something that’s not going to lose $600 billion of value in a day. Right. The whole sector is not even worth that. So it’s. No, but I hear you. Yeah, no, I hear you. And we are seeing that rotation out of tech into and, and what’s.

And again, back to this, this quantitative technical movement as we go into this next leg of this bull market. The difference this time, the difference this time compared to 2010, 11, that, you know, that active sector was larger than it is today. And so I think for silver, factoring in industrial demand, the passive money, the move that we’re about to see is I think, even gonna surprise you. And I, I am with you on that. And perhaps what helps me to put the nice pillow to sleep on at night is that even with this big beautiful bill they’re talking about, well, we’re gonna save 1.4 trillion or 2 point that, that’s not to be clear.

Everyone watching, they’re not talking about the debt load is going to come down. They’re saying, well, we thought over the next 10 years we’re going to blow it out 20 trillion. Now, our math, based on assumptions that have no chance of occurring, is that, oh, we’re only going to do it 19. So they call it a trillion dollars of savings. They’re not discussing. There’s no plan to pay it back. Except, Sean, you alluded to what I think really is the plan that again, I might add that several members of the Trump administration have commented on whether they call it a dollar devaluation where some of re.

Some form of restructuring. And did you have something to add to that, Sean? I just think for the first time in, I can’t remember the last time, we’ve got a Western, you know, Western central bank or a Western government where, you know, they see gold as part of the solution, not part of the problem. And I think this is a big trend that, you know, the, the hatred of gold and, you know, the central banks being net sellers, you know, that ended 25 years ago, but it’s taken us 25 years. And the Eastern banks were the buyers, Right? They were the buyers in the first two decades of, you know, post central bank selling.

But now we’re finally starting to see the West. And I think actually what’s really coming into this price momentum is Western buyers, like the west is buying. And that’s why the gold stocks have caught a bid, right? And the silver stocks have caught a bit. It’s because Western buyers have come into the metals that are coming in. And that’s a very, very exciting time. It’s a very rewarding time for precious Metals investors. And the great news is, you know, a lot of people are like, sean, is it too late? Is it too late? It hasn’t even begun.

Right. And this is the great. You know, for anybody on the sidelines or anybody new to this, you know, the fact that silver is trading, you know, you know you need 90 ounces of silver to get an ounce of gold, tells you that this is very, very early days. Yes. And Sean, I’ll just add to what you mentioned there about Western money coming back in. Maybe not quite as much on the retail level, but here we can see since February, at a billion 80 million. So basically 100 million ounces added to the ETFs in the last four months, let’s call it.

Although, Sean, one last important thing I did want to cover with you because actually ties in with what you said before, where we have this gap in silver, we have senior producers yet. If someone’s going to capture this gap, you would think there needs to be someone advancing these junior projects. A mismatch there. Although fortunately, in terms of. Would not say there are a lot of entities in position to capture that. Although it’s exciting because I guess you represent one of the few here. And just a quick highlight, we’ll get to the financing that you just did.

But, Sean, we. I’ve been sharing these updates with folks over the past couple weeks, but it was the acquisition of the Kins Cook property. Here was the Porter property. And which one was this? You were so active. And I know before we started recording you mentioned that basically you had a 6⅔ x in terms of the total property size. We’ll get to the drill program in a moment, but it’s been great to see since the last time you were on the show that you’ve essentially been going down that path that you were describing before and would love to hear what you could tell us about what you’ve done in the past month and a half here.

Yeah, I don’t know if you want to scroll down here. There, there may be a map that accompanies this image right there. And so this, this incorporates some of the acquisitions that we’ve made here. But look, what I’m trying to do, and if you think about the timing and the rationale, when we did it. So, you know, look, we. We started advancing Dolly Varden about five years ago. You know, you and I just met, and the company was a small company that had two past producing mines in a very prolific area in northwest B.C. and today what the company represents is we’ve gone through a tremendous amount of growth.

You know, we’ve been actively buying deposits. So when I started, we had 7,000 hectares of ground. Today we have 100,000 hectares of prospective ground. Today we have five pass producing silver deposits within our 100% owned land package. And what I’m trying to do is I’m trying to identify projects that used to be great, you know, projects that, you know, the greatest silver mine in the British Empire, you know, one of Canada’s greatest silver mines. I’m trying to assemble the great minds of the past because there’s, there’s an old saying in mining that the best place to look for new deposits is next to old ones.

And so not only are we looking at old mines, we’re looking at mines that, you know, at, you know, 85 cents a silver ounce in 1959 were not economic, but guess what? The price is no longer 85 cents. And as I talked about some of those input costs going down and the metals going up, these, you know, the average silver miner today, they’re, they’re all in a sustaining cost, about $20 an ounce. So with close to $40 silver, you know, these companies, if you can start producing 10 million ounces a year, you know, your man, and you multiply that by $20 an ounce, that’s a very, very, very profitable business.

And, and so, and that’s just factoring in $40 silver. So my point to you is what we did going back in April is we decided to list our shares on the NYC American. And we did that because there are only 10 companies on the New York Stock Exchange that are giving investors exposure to silver. And now Dolly Varden is one of those companies. So we’re open to the biggest market in the world. We’ve got our shares there. And then after we, we had more eyeballs and more, more buyers and, and more investors come into this, the company, the share price lifted and we took our shares that had gone up and we use them to buy depressed assets, to buy assets for pennies on the dollar.

And we went and, and these junior companies that are out there in the world there, it’s very tough times, very, very, very tough times for the juniors. And we’ve been very fortunate that we’ve had some very supportive, large institutional shareholders, people like Eric Sprott that have come and supported our business. Hecla Mining has been a big supporter of our business. And so through that shareholder support, you know, we have gone out and we’ve done exploration, we’ve made discoveries, we’ve Gotten very, very active, acquiring these incredible past treasures and, you know, some of the richest silver mines in Canada.

And, and now we’re in a position where we, we are going to close the financing, and we’ll have $55 million in the bank. We currently have about 28 million. We’ll close this financing. We’ll have north of $55 million in the bank. We’ve got. Yeah, we just announced this one on, on Monday there, where, you know, thanks to Eric Sprott support and other institutional investors, we’re, we’re adding $28.75 million to our treasury. And, and we’re doing it at the highest price and highest terms. So, Chris, as you’ve got to know me, over the last five years, there’s been a tradition at Dolly Varden of, Of up rounds.

No down rounds. Up rounds. Right. So every financing has occurred at a higher share price, and that way, the investors that are supporting us, you know, they’re. They’re making money along the way. If they choose to exit the company, they’re. They’re doing it at higher and higher prices. And that’s been something that’s been challenging to accomplish in an environment that’s been difficult. So my point to you here is the company is in a very, very strong financial position as an advanced explorer. We’ve got a tremendous amount of silver underneath our surface. Already identified about 150 million ounces of silver equivalent, which has grown substantially since we started.

We’ve got all these past producing mines. We’ve got four drill rigs in the field, and we’re drilling and we’re expanding and we’re extending. And, you know, we’ve had a lot of success on the, on the discovery side of the operation. We’ve had a lot of success in the, in the boardroom cutting deals and growing through acquisitions. And we’re one of the few companies that’s out there that cares about silver. You know, I’m not a mining engineer. I’m not a geologist. I’m a. I’m a precious metals enthusiast. And I’m here to build a business, to give myself and my shareholders exposure to something that I think is mispriced, which is silver.

And I think as it gets realized, the real value of it, all the work we’ve done over the last five years will be rewarded, and I’m already seeing it. When we started, Chris, when you and I met, this was a $20 million company. It’s a $400 million company today. That’s. That’s impressive. Growth, considering we’ve gone through a time that hasn’t been very rewarding to precious metals equities, but now it’s just begun. So now as the market begins, the, you know, it’ll. The next phase of development, the next phase of growth should be faster and more dramatic and meaningful.

Yeah. And Sean, very well said, first of all. And I think you also touched on something that is one of the questions I hear a lot for mining stock investors where it’s like, all right, if the market is depressed, shouldn’t there be good deals on assets out there? And that’s really what you’ve been doing and capturing. And in terms of. You also mentioned how some, you know, the size of the company has grown. I remember back when we first started, was your, was your. I think your target back then was 50 million ounces in the ground, and you had to raise it to 100.

Now you’ve had to raise it again. It’s, it’s kind of like the banks trying to keep up with their price targets, where said gold’s gonna be 3,000, then it’s 3,200, now it’s 30. Go to 35. What is the current target in your mind look for. For me, I, I’m, I’m, I’m looking up at 200 million ounces as the next target on a silver equivalent basis and obviously hoping for, for much more over time and in the future. But we need to set goals that we believe that with, you know, with, with good science and with hard work, we can achieve.

Okay, and will the. Are you expecting a new resource update later this year or anything you can say about that? So after this year’s drilling, the idea is to put out a new 43.101 compliant resource estimate and then use that document. Document to put out economic study. Okay. Any timeline or a little too soon to even venture a guess on that? I, I think the, the first part of that equation, which is the MRE, the 43101 computer document. You know, I don’t see why we couldn’t have it available in April and, And then, you know, use that to formulate an economic study soon after.

Okay. And then just the last thing I wanted to. You touched on this a little bit, but obviously you do have the drill program ongoing. I am pulling that press release up, but I believe it’s almost a month that you’ve been out there. If you have any thoughts or could just again, recap for people what you’re targeting in this program. So, look, we’ve in, in addition to the 150 million ounces of silver equivalent that we’ve identified, half silver, half gold, you know, we’re looking to expand and extend that and try to get to that 200 million ounce target.

And we’re going to do that through this drill program. So we currently have, running 24 hours a day put have a total of four rigs. We’re about 6000 meters away into this 35,000 meter drill program. Potentially at some point we may make a decision to expand the program. And all I can say is, you know, we’re looking, we’re, we’re going to be eager to be reporting results starting probably July and then actively reporting results right through till Christmas. Wow. Well, that should be a fun year especially. We’ll see what happens to the silver price. But if past couple months have been any indication, again, obviously you guys have to run a business whether the price goes up or down, but certainly to the degree that there’s people behind us and you’re someone I’ve known and rooted for for a long time, to see things progressing the way they are at a time when the price is also doing well is just warms my silvery heart today.

So Sean, could you just let folks know if they’d like to get more information? I might add you have someone that I love as well in your investor relations department. That’s our dear friend Diana who is great to talk with. Jess, could you tell people the best way to reach out? I know you got an AI tab somewhere on there. Ah, where did it go? But I know just can you let folks know how the best way to reach you? Shoot, yeah. Listen, if you don’t want to talk to us, we do have this AI chatbot that will answer all your questions and it’s quite a unique tool and I’m happy to say we were the first company to incorporate such a, such a feature on their website in terms of a public company.

And so we’ve got that. But if you, you know, if you like to, to work the old fashioned way like I do, we’d love to hear from you. We have a toll free number if you go onto the contact tab there under menu, Chris, Diana’s information as well as you know all if you just scroll down just a pinch. So her, her phone number, her email address and you know, if you’d like to schedule some time with me, a meeting, I’m happy to walk you through the presentation. So we love hearing from prospective shareholders whether it’s to talk specifically about Dolly Varn or, or to talk about the gold and silver market.

You know we, in order to be successful I think you need to be passionate about what you’re doing. We love this stuff. You know, we do it you know, 16 hours a day and you know, love sharing what we’re doing. We’re very active on X and other social media platforms so you know that’s you know, please follow us and you’ll get the latest pictures and news releases and you know we send out a lot of information too around our vision, you know, our goals, what we’re trying to do here. And it’s very, very simple. We’re trying to secure the world silver, you know, high grade safe jurisdiction.

It’s good quality silver where you know we’re creating a lot of jobs for local communities in the north and yeah, no it’s, we’ve, we’ve built a great team, we’ve got a great asset and now we’re, looks like we’re starting to come. Precious metals market. Yes Sean, and I’ll, I’ll just add to what you said there that I, I do as someone who’s a student of marketing and thinks about this stuff a lot of the time, I appreciate what you guys have done. You’re one of the few companies I’ve seen that actually sends out videos where you know, there’s some people that get the drill results.

They’re experienced veterans, they can read through it. But I, I’ll suggest to people if you don’t feel like talking to someone but would like to stay posted. Sean, you guys do. I appreciate that you put effort into communicating and making these things easy to understand because yes, the mining is a huge part of it but also knowing how to reach investors is a big part and I think you’re doing great there and honored to be a part of it and honored to have you for what I think was a great show today. I hope people at home enjoyed this and Sean, I’ll let you go get back to it.

I know your uncle hunting the rest of that golden triangle. Save a few, save a few ounces for the locals man. Come on, don’t, don’t be greedy over there and but it’s great to see what you’re doing especially in these current conditions and we’ll look forward to checking back in with you soon my friend. All the best Chris. Thanks for having me on Sam.
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