while we are waiting for silver and gold to make new highs, copper has already done so.  unlike silver and gold, the price of copper is not easily manipulated, and trades more freely, driven by demand as china and india industrialize.  but the copper juniors aren't doing any better than the silver and gold exploration companies.

one interesting company is western copper (wrn.to or wcpcf) which is trading at 1.33, down almost 50% from its 52-week high.  a few years ago this company was exploring for copper when it came across the penasquito deposit.  they found some copper there, but also a lot of gold (13+ million oz.) and even more silver (1.2 billion oz.) 

when they realized what they had, they changed their name to western silver.  this brought them to the attention of glamis gold, which bought the penasquito deposit for lots of $$$.  (glamis was then gobbled up by goldcorp, which also wanted penasquito, but that's another story.)  then western silver, now minus its big silver deposit, but plus lots of $$$, changed its name back to western copper, and went on exploring for copper again.

so they are well funded to continue exploration and development work, and they are now trying to get their carmacks project permitted.  that will be the next catalyst for movement in the stock price, good or bad, and it should take place this summer.  if they are successful, they will be on track to start construction of a mine in the second half of 2009.

they have other projects as well, but carmacks is the most advanced one.  this is a speculative stock, but at $1.33 it provides a lot of leverage if you are looking for a way to play copper.  as always, your mileage may vary.