Vancouver Stock Exchange Holidaty slowdown takes effect

The bright spot was gold prices, still holding nicely over the $400(US) threshold. But that wasn’t enough to put much life into junior gold issues this week, particularly with a number of non-resource issues dominating trading.

Prime Resources was once again the most active mining issue, down a nickel to $2.04. Calpine Resources also lost ground, off 50 cents to $5.00.

Shareholders of Prime and Calpine met as planned in mid- December. Prime shareholders voted to consolidate the capital of the company, but the vote to approve the Prime/Calpine merger was adjourned to allow for the preparation of a second fairness opinion. But the proxies deposited seems to reflect that the merger would have been easily passed.

Calpine released some additional drill results from the Eskay Creek project north of Stewart, B.C., which included both high-grade and lower-grade results for both precious and base metals. It will be interesting to see what the average grade of the 21 zone deposit proves to be when an independent reserve calculation is prepared in February, 1990.

Dayton Developments was also active, with the company’s share price up 54 cents to $1.50. The company released some interesting drill results from its Andacollo gold project in Chile. A prefeasibility study is expected early next year. The company expects it will add to the geological mineral inventory currently estimated at 22.6 million tons grading 0.046 oz gold per ton.

It appears there is a major difference of opinion on the status of the Vault property in southern British Columbia being explored by a unit of Inco Ltd. Seven Mile High Group, which has a 40% interest in the epithermal gold project, has been busy promoting with the help of a Florida-based investor relations firm. Although Seven Mile says a production decision is “immi nent,” Inco says this is definitely not the case, nor is an underground program planned for this season (see story this issue). Seven Mile, the subject of much short selling last week, gained back 37 cents to $2.67. Apparently U.S. buying contributed to the share price increase.

Goldnev Resources got a boost of 4 cents to $1.14. The company is a partner with Bethlehem Resources to bring back into production the Goldstream copper-zinc mine property near Revelstoke, B.C. Goldnev also released results from drilling on the Main zone deposit of the Grew Creek property near Faro, Y.T. The program is aimed at increasing confidence in a higher- grade core reserve of 203,870 tons grading 0.354 oz gold.

Springer Resources was up 2 cents to 25 cents . The company says no significant results were received from three drill holes at the Unuk project north of Stewart, B.C., which is part of a large joint venture land position in the region.

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