Thank you for your comments Bull.

They were quite timely since I had a discussion with a friend just the other day, and his criticism of my approach was "...but you do not own gold with explorers..."

I countered with some of the ideas you expressed, i.e. that I own gold in the ground and that, presently, due to fear in the markets, etc., the distance between gold in the ground and gold in one's hand is perceived by most to be too great a risk for gold in the ground to be greatly valued. In other words, an ounce in the ground in Mexico will only become an ounce in someone's hand after many things have happened: permitting, capital raising, mine building, mine construction, successful production, etc.

I told my friend that even though some risks do exist on the road from ounce in the ground to oucne in the hand, I found it hard to believe that, at $1000 gold, an ounce in the ground implies so much 'risk' that the value drops to 10 or 20 dollars, as is the case with some juniors today.

I tend to believe that as people flee to gold bullion, a new bunch will start to say " Hey, that bullion stuff is starting to get really expensive; isn't there another way to own gold?" Then they will "discover" mining stocks: majors, mid-tiers, and then us. I just hope it happens before things "fall apart".

All the best,

Stone