Rewind to August 2020 and you’ll find gold printing a record high at $2,089 per ounce while Bitcoin (BTC) was breaking back over $10,000. We know what happened from there, investors maintained a risk-on strategy, sending BTC to a record high at nearly $69,000 in November 2021 while gold slipped quietly back down to around $1,750 an ounce.
In 2022, inflation worries are high, bubble talk is in the air, indiscriminate selling is happening, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is on its biggest losing streak since the market collapse in March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic reached fever pitch. To that point, gold surprised to the upside last week by breaking over $1,830 while BTC is back under $34,000, suggesting a more risk averse mentality is overtaking Wall Street where stock pickers will look through the turbulence to find opportunities.
That can mean small cap miners and explorers come back into favor, particularly those that were savvy enough to grow their portfolio during the pullback in gold prices from the record. That’s exactly what King Global Ventures Inc. (TSX-Venture: KING) (OTCPK KGLDF) did, making an acquisition to add to an impressive land position in the Gander Gold Belt region of northeast-central Newfoundland, Canada, one of the most actively explored areas of North America today.
In June 2021, King bought the 1,600-hectare Chapel Island Prospect, increasing its position in the region to 4,144 hectares in total. Chapel Island is located on the Cape Ray Fault, a fracture that is home to Marathon Gold’s (TSX:MOZ) (OTCQX:MGDPF) Cape Ray and Valentine Lake projects, Teck’s (TSX:TCK.B) (NYSE:TECK) Duck Pond Mine, Sokoman’s (TSX-Venture:SIC) Moosehead project, and in close proximity to Newfound Gold’s (NYSE American:NFGC) (TSX:-Venture:NFG) Queensway project (on Appleton Fault) that is touted as Canada’s newest big gold discovery.
Historic sampling at Chapel Island returned up to 149.8 g/t (grams per tonne) gold (Au) and 23.3 g/t silver (Ag) in the Lost Swamp Zone and up to 85 g/t Au, 32 g/t Au, and 27 g/t Au from the Road Zone. Grab samples have also returned up to 3.05% nickel.
Even before King completed the Chapel Island acquisition, it had earned the attention of famed resource investor Eric Sprott, who invested $1 million in KING in May. Sprott beneficially owns or controls 11.2% of the company on a non-diluted basis and 20.1% when factoring in the warrants to buy more shares he holds.
Sprott invested on King’s 100% interests in the Golden Nugget, Miss Pickle, and Gold Boulder projects in the area, all of which have historic data supporting future gold mine potential. As it happens, there is something extremely promising to say about each. For instance, a new gold trend that remains open in all directions was discovered at Miss Pickle via exploration late last year. Work programs conducted at Golden Nugget from 2002-2007 returned results such as 50.2 grams per tonne Au over 1.1 metres, 87 g/t over 0.8 metres and 29.2 g/t over 2.5 metres.
Late last year, King received provincial approval to conduct a multiparameter airborne survey system (M-PASS) on its Golden Nugget and Miss Pickle properties.
And then there is Gold Boulder, which is completely surrounded by Newfound Gold’s Queensway. If any project can draw upon adjacent land to speculate about the opportunity, it certainly is the Gold Boulder prospect. At just 4.5 cents per share and a $6.6-million market cap, a return to bullishness for gold should certainly benefit King Global Ventures not only for its Newfoundland projects, but also its York Gold Property in Quebec that is on trend with some new discoveries and the Eleonor Gold Mine.
