Well it’s December 23rd and we’ve shut the books on 2001. We’d like to take the opportunity to thank all of our readers for support and encouragement over the last few months. “Straight Talk” is now read in 23 different countries. Next year we’ll be bigger and better. All the …

I have had a great deal of feedback from my “Silver” essays. Please keep it coming! Other snippets to report: I mentioned that by-product silver production from some porphyry copper mines is huge, not because they contain high grade silver, but because they mine huge volumes of low grade rock …

“Mining is the backbone of wealth and the spinal column of all certainty.” – Cecil John Rhodes Silver, like gold, platinum, and palladium is considered one of the precious metals. This differentiates it from zinc, copper, lead, nickel and tin which are base metals. What makes a precious metal “precious”? …