"Frank Smeenk's Debut Diamonds Inc. (DDI: $0.005) will have its shareholders vote on its proposal to roll back its stock 1:10, adding "Consolidated" to its name in the process. (If approved, the new name, Consolidated Debut Diamonds, would seem conflicted. Perhaps Mr. Smeenk, managing director, should have kept the company's original moniker, Debuts Diamonds Inc., which was the result of a typographical error in the incorporation documents.) The new name suggests Mr. Smeenk is content to keep Debut focused on diamonds, or rather return it to diamond exploration. Debut was a late 2000s spin-off from Mr. Smeenk's KWG Resources Inc. (KWG: $0.035), which had several inactive diamond plays and a promotable chromite project in Northern Ontario. KWG transferred all its gem plays and some cash to Debut in exchange for shares, but Debut left its most promotable project untouched, choosing instead to spend a few million dollars on a grassroots diamond hunt that flopped, and a gold prospect near Timmins that fared no better.

Nevertheless, Debut's MacFadyen diamond project, near the De Beers Victor mine in the Attawapiskat region of Northern Ontario, is worth a closer look. (Unfortunately, a geologist's closer look is invariably a more expensive look, and Debut has never been able to raise the cash for a several-hundred-tonne mini-bulk sample from at least one of several intriguing pipes at MacFadyen. KWG completed small tests in the mid-2000s at MacFadyen-1, MacFadyen-2 and Good Friday, complementing work completed during the 1990s. Those tests showed the pipes had diamond grades possibly comparable with Victor's 0.23-carat-per-tonne average, although the one or two tonnes collected from each pipe were naturally inconclusive. Still, the coarse diamond size distribution pattern and the quality of the few gems recovered keep the Victor comparison alive. Unfortunately, Mr. Smeenk will have to raise several million dollars to do the work while Debut hopes -- perhaps unrealistically -- that the Indians of Attawapiskat will look favourably on the proposed drill program."