ABREVADERCI: you and others keep talking about this smelter. Do you really think that SFMI will have their own smelter to process the concentrates anytime soon? Maybe a small furnace to do something with the assays, but a real smelter that will make large dore bars that will then be sent to a refinery so they can produce income? If so how big is it going to be? As far as we have been told, there has not been a feasibility study done to determine what is needed to smelt the ore, what fluxes are required, to recover both gold and silver, etc. According to the information I have read on smelters, it takes some time to get a permit from the US EPA. Have they even filed for a permit from the us EPA? Smelters fall under a SIC code that requires a permit. Other smelters have suggested that it takes at least 270 plus days to get the permit after an application is filed. May be they are going to buy a mobile smelter with an existing permit (if such a thing exist)? I am not counting on any revenues from our own smelter for some time, probably why SMFI needed the loan since previous postings on this board stated that we only needed the concentrates for a loan and that production would cover expenses? My guess is that all this BS about getting ripped off at the smelter and building our own smelter is just more fluff to cover up the fact that the concentrates produced by the mill are not free gold or silver and are going to be difficult to extract at a profit. Geomine

Bouts: where did you confirm this? Give me the name of the agency that banned them? Geomine

ANTONZACH1: do you have a reference on where KGC was "thrown out of Idaho? I know they shut down their operations, but never heard they were "thrown out" for environmental problems?? geomine

Do we know who hired these companies to do the drilling and when the drilling occurred? Was it before SFMI was in the picture? Geomine

I would still like to hear a little more about this smelter. The most recent pr by the president did not mention it. Is this a small smelter or furnace part of the lab equipment that they originally reported they had at Melba and is just part of the equipment required to conduct assays in house. Or is this really a smelter designed to smelt the concentrate that they have stored? All earlier pr stated it was to process the concentrate but the recent pr does not mention it and the quote that was presented on this board by someone called it a "pour facility" what ever that is. We could still use some straight information. Geomine

Garick: You asked when the Smelter and lab were going to be operational and RK answered that the Lab and "Pour Facilities" were being built and would we would be told when complete.

Is a Pour Facility the same as a Smelter??? The term smelter has been used on this board and in company pr but now it becomes a pour facility. Is this pour facility part of the lab to be used in a fire assay, or is this pour facility a smelter to be used to smelt the ore into dore bars that are to be shipped to the local refinery that has been discussed (although no one has identified a local refinery). Or is all this just more mumble jumble talk like all the other pr and hype on this board. Geomine

SFMI is proposing to reenter old mines, remove ore and process it. If you want to see what it takes to bring all of this on line, go go the ACURANA Corp's web page and look at the 250 page feasibility report on the old Shafer Silver Mine. it pretty much describes all the activities they have to do. If SFMI had something like this, I think it would make most investors happy. Maybe the New geologist can get them to do something like this. Geomine.

Rabidgod. See my post on this. A smelter is not like a furnace or heating permit. Also there is no city hall. If you want to believe this that is ok with me, but I am going to set tight on my shares until I see that they are building a smelter to process the ore and that they have the proper permits from the US EPA. Call the EPA hot line if you think I am wrong, or if you are really sure about this, OK. Geomine

Abrevaderci: Ok if that is what you think, but A permit for a smelter that is going to process gold/silver ore is not like a permit for a gas heater. Why don't you call the EPA office in Washington state and ask them about the permitting process for a gold/sliver smelter? They also have some stuff on line and they have a hot line you call call. Geomine

Antonzach1. I agree that there will no revenue reported until after the concentrates is smelted and sent to a refinery. We have no information on the size of that smelter they are building, hope it is big enough for when they start mining, not just for the above ground material they are processing now. I also have not heard on the status of the permitting through the US EPA for a smelter permit and that will take some time to get. Electric or gas? Can you tell me how many and where and what the names are of the local refineries? I did not know there were any commercial ones in Idaho? Maybe they are in Nevada? In summary, if income is to wait on a smelter being constructed, I wonder how long that will be. My guess is that it would be at least a year away, but maybe they have a way to get through the permitting process faster than normal. Geomine

Actually I do not have an issue with draining the mine. It may be expensive but can be done and must be done if there is to be any mining of the lower part of the ore veins. My issue has been with the hipe put out which in my mind detracts from the potential of the stock. People saying that the geologist has a Phd when he has a B.S. degree. There are many good geologist that do not have PhD, so why say he has one when he does not. Do people think that this makes him more believable? Why claim the Asarco had a profitable mine when they did not, etc, etc. Just way too much hype and bad pr which is a reflection on management. Geomine

ANTONZACH1: With all of the good things that we can say about War Eagle Mountain: Good Gold and Silver values when mining ceased, good geologic data showing trends, most major veins mapped out, many access shafts and tunnels in place and usable with minor work. Why all the hype!!!

For instance, the ASARCO venture was not a success. Asarco started on the Sinker Tunnel in 1899 and worked on it until 1902. The intended use of the tunnel was to drain the water out of War Eagle Mountain and to remove ore. The Sinker tunnel was not a mine. They did intersect several veins. The project was shut down by mining inspectors because of the fear of water from above flooding the project. In 1905 Asarco shut down the project and never returned. Asarco did not make any money on this project.

Also Not all geologists believe that this can be mined at a profit. A lot of people including geologists have looked at the mountain over the years.

A lot of the hype on this board, really turns many people off. This is a speculative stock with good potential and I repeat potential. The major concern here is if the ore can be mined at a profit. With proper management, I think it can, but that is still to be proven. The various PRs that the company puts out are really trash with a lot of BS thrown in for good measure. We can only hope that they can sell enough stock or find the investors to allow them to hire the right people including someone that knows enough about milling, smelting and refining to extract and process the ore at a profit.

It will be interesting to see if they can make any money this quarter with all of the GOOD ore they are milling. If they have the mill working and they are accumulating the amount of concentrates they claim and are recovering 90 +% of the claimed assay values, then they should be able to show us the money. If they can then this stock will rise, if not, then who knows what will happen. Geomine

Is anyone on this board invested in SFMI following Aurcana corporation? They seem to be doing what SMFI is doing, opening an old silver mine, with similar silver ore values. If so look at the feasibility study and the ore processing system outlined. I don't think the ore is the same, but has SFMI completed this type of study to determine the necessary process to recover the silver and gold from the concentrates? Geomine

Actually I have been to War Eagle Mountain several times and I have been in Sinker Tunnel and crawled around on the ore piles. I have read most of the geologic reports on the gold mines and I have read most of the historic information on how the mines were operated. I am offering an opinion based this information. When I do not know for sure, I say so and that is more than a lot of the silly stuff posted here. I own stock in both SFMI and GHDC and I have never sold any of it. I plan to keep it until it goes to a price too high to keep, until SFMI is bought out or the stock drops back to a penny. I bought it because I know that there is gold and silver in the mountain. My only question is and has been can they mine and process the ore at a profit. Neither you, I or anyone else on this board knows the answer to that question. All we can hope for is for a company to be straight with us, and they have not done that. Geomine

I am not sure that it is me that wants to muddy the water. The Pr releases and many of the posters here are doing a very good job without me. As many have noted, the early miners took the best ore, they used hand drills, black powder and later air drills powered by steam engines. They carried the ore down the mountains in wagons, sleds, and in at least one case by cable cars. The ore was processed through a stamp mill powered by steam (there were a number of them on War eagle Mt) then over plates covered with mercury which was then placed in a furnace to drive off the mercury and they were left with gold and silver bullion (still had other minerals in it, it was not pure gold) which was then taken off the mountain for further processing. A lot of the ore had more visible gold and some of it was free gold. A lot of the gold in the mountain is not free gold or silver but is tied up with other elements to form minerals. I am guessing that the grinding process that is used at the mill does not free up the gold.The books that I have read on smelting and refining, suggest that other treatment is required to further process the ore. That is probably why the smelting and refining process did not produce much money. If anyone has any better ideas about this, why not post you thoughts instead of just attacking those who are asking real questions. By the way for the poster who suggested that their PR stated they were going to build a lab and would have a chemists. What happened to the lab in Melba, according to their PR they had one??? Geomine

NO News is Good News. In my opinion, all we have been getting is no news and I am not sure it is good. In all of the talk about building a smelter, and how our new PhD (actually i think the PR says he has a B.S. Degree) Geologist will get us going in the right direction, and the smelter ripped us off, etc is not really news that we need to tell us if gold and silver in war eagle mountain can be mined and processed at a profit. No one has ever talked about what type of minerals they are mining or what type of minerals are contained in the ore. My guess is that it is not free gold or silver but exist in various minerals such as Arsenopyrite, Argentite, Electrum, and many other minerals that have been mentioned in the various geologic reports produced by the USGS and various other government groups and universities. These minerals are not easy to seperate using mechanical methods alone (grinding and shaker tables). This means that the crushed concentrate sent off for smelting and refining had to be treated before the gold could be extracted. My guess is this is the problem with trying to find a smelter to smelt the concentrate and is the problem with the amount of gold/silver they recovered and did not want to report. (I think that reports of being ripped off by the smelter are just stories). If SFMI really wants to move forward with this, they need a good Metallurgical engineer or chemist with experience with smelting and gold/silver recovery. Good news in my opinion would be a plan of operations, telling us what,how and when they are going to produce gold and silver at a profit or prove to someone that will buy them out that it can be produced at a profit. Geomine

Will someone please describe what is necessary to set up a smelter and have it operating in 90 days? Is there a permit required from the US EPA? What kind of chemicals or flux is required to take out the impurities. If I recall the first dore bar poured off site was a little over one half the weight of the concentrates? I assume the rest was slag? Where is the slag going to go? do you have to have a permit to dispose of slag? If, as stated in the PR, SFMI can do all of this in the next 90 days then I guess we have to wait until May to see the results of the first dore bar poured on site and maybe we can then figure out if there is a potential profit to be made from this operation. This PR sure don't seem to indicate they could have even paid expenses based on the amount of concentrates they recovered. Geomine

Before we had any numbers there were a lot of posters that were doing all types of math to come up with how much money they would have made by the end of the year? Now it looks like that they have about $200,000 maybe more gold and silver contained in the concentrates, not yet smelted or refined. Even if the next batch of ore is twice as good or 4 times as good, what will that produce in revenues. Given the expenses of this operation, they still have not demonstrated that they can operate at a profit. the stock price reflect that. Maybe next year. geomine

Anyone think that we will have a stockholders meeting in Boise this year? geomine

"The smelter ripped them off"..."the dog ate my homework" Sorry guys but that story don't cut no ice. I assume by what RK told you about the rip off means that they did not get much in that "wire transfer that they were waiting for". Hopefully some day, someone will figure out how to make money from this operation, obviously they need help. Geomine

There is a lot of talk about building smelters, refineries, etc here on this board. However, no one has ever discussed what is involved in this type of operation. How many tons of concentrates could it process in a day? What type of smelter is it? Does anyone have a process flow sheet? Will these smelters require dust bags, filters, will they use chemicals, what type of air pollution permit is required, how long will it take to get these permits, and from who, THE US EPA??? It really makes no sense to talk about constructing smelters on site unless you know the answers to this. Even with a smelter to produce dore bars, you then need to ship the dore bars off site for further processing and as I understand this is the current problem, not the smelter, but the refinery??? The existing process of producing concentrates and shipping them off site for processing seems to be the most reasonable thing to do. As I have questioned before, is there some problem with the minerals tied up with the gold and silver that is making the refining process difficult?? Would SMFI have the same problems if they build the smelter on site? I think there is a lot getting the cart before the horse here. SMFI will need to define the ore bodies, develop a mining plan, get all the necessary permits and build the infrastructure for a mining operation. They currently have the infrastructure for collecting and milling the old ore dumps. geomine

Draining the mines: Yes, I doubt that they would try to drain from below like they were thinking 100 years ago. They could even dewater the mine shafts (pump it out from above) before trying to connect up with the old workings, and we don't even know if they will try to connect up to the old workings. however, it is going to be some time before they can really start to mine underground. They have do some permitting to do, they have to come up with a plan to dispose of the water, they will need to lay tracks into the tunnel, install ventilation, prepare a mining plan, and really they have to do some geological work before they know where they will mine. They do not have enough room at the mill site to get rid of the existing waste, not sure they own the land or have filled the necessary paperwork with BLM, etc. I still think there is a lot of infrastructure work to do, both at the tunnel and at the mill. I am not betting on any new ore for some time. geomine

ANTONZACH1: I think you should actually read some of the post including your own. I never said that there was electricity from 1865-1900. I gave you the dates that electricity was ran to the mines. I also provided a reference to you that list the number and locations of the mills that were on the mountain. I think that you protest too much. As with the Sinker tunnel. You stated it was a maze. I stated that I thought it was a straight tunnel designed to intersect existing known veins and drain the existing mines and provide access fro new shafts. I have never stated that there is no gold or silver in the mountain. In fact i believe that there is a lot of gold and silver. The only question that I have is can they get it out at a profit, and only time will tell. No one, including the management of the company can state that right now. I plan on holding on to my shares until they make a good profit for the shareholders, until there is a buy out, or until they go bust.

ANTONZACH1: I do not recall any descriptions of the Sinker tunnel as a maze trying to find the big veins. I recall that it was fairly straight and was designed to intersect the main veins that were already known. Then they would tunnel upward to drain the mines, thus lowering pumping costs and providing a lower cost access to additional shafts and drifts?? Please let me know where you found the reference you are using. Geomine

Oryx. Actually, the use of electricity in the mines was the only reason that electricity was ran up to silver city (it would not have been economical to construct it for just domestic use. The Swan Falls Dam and electric generators were built by the mining companies just for mining. There was a small electric plant in Silver City (for residential use only and not very good) before swan falls was built and electric plant another in Dewey. geomine

ANTONZACH1: There is a lot of info at the Owyhee County Historical Society, which is only a few miles from the SFMI mill location. Also the Idaho Historical Society in Boise has a lot of information and most of it is on line, just requires a little searching. The July 2003 edition of "War Eagle Mountain Field Trip, Historical and Mining Road Log by Wilma Lewis Statham, Rusty Statham and William Stratham (long time Silver City People) is a neat publication with a great map showing the old mining sites and mill sites and some good photographs Original publication date is 1998. You can probably order one of these from the Owyhee County historical Society. geomine

Did ARSARCO actually mine or did they construct the Sinker Tunnel in order to drain the mines above, but stopped when the mine inspectors shut down the operation over safety concerns? My point is that a lot of information is presented here about what happened on the mountain. For instance it has been stated there were no mills on the mountain. However, there were at least 9 stamp mills in the area, about 5 along the creek and at least 4 on the mountain. As I have stated, history is one thing, but the question here is can SFMI produce ore and turn it into a profit, and as I stated, I think that is several years away. Geomine

Antonzach1. Electricity came after 1901 when the Swan Falls Dam was constructed. While most of the power was used at the Trade Dollar and/or the Blaine Mill, power was also in Silver City They moved ore from the mountains down to the mill sites using mules and wagons and or sleds. One of the mines, I am not sure if it was on WEM used a cable car system (could have been on Florida or DeLamar mountains. You are correct that most of the mining ocurred before electrical power from the Dam was available and there is gold ore both outside in piles and inside the mountain. My only point in all of this is that mining stopped and started in the Silver City area when the mine owners could no longer make a profit or if they could not find the financing. This is no different than today. They will either find a way to make a profit from the mining, or continue to find financing (sell stock), or sell out to someone or they will go out of business. I think those of us who are holding our stocks are all speculating on the company either making a profit or a buyout. The postings on this board will have very little to do with the outcome. Geomine

OK, you believe what you want, it really makes no difference. There were mills in the silver city area. They were operated by horse power and steam power and then by electrical power. Mining started and stopped an number of times and mines and property changed ownership. Labor was a problem, bank failures, depression causing a lack of need, Fuel (wood for steam power) cost, pumping water costs. It was difficult at the time for the mine stock holders to make money although some mine owners did make a lot. The fact then and now related to making a profit is the ability to extract and produce gold/silver at a profit. SFMI is not doing that now, hopefully someday they will. We are not going to know that for some period of time. I think we are still three years or more away from knowing that. I see three possible options, one they sell out, two they figure out how to mine at a profit, or three they go bust. I plan on holding the stock that I own until one these occurs. Nothing that is said on this board will influence this decision. If you are interested in the history of this area, including the mining, milling, amounts of gold produced, mine closures, transportation, power, you should go to the Idaho Historical Society Web site. Geomine

There was electricity on the mountain after swan falls dam was built by the mining companies. Before this 1870-1900, power was by steam and horse power.
Electricity was discontinued after the mines started to shut down and the wires removed during WW II. There are several publications which traces the mining activities on the mountain, you may want to check with the Idaho Historical Society. They did not haul ore across the snake river. The ore was processed in mills near the mines, typically down hill near the streams. geomine

Not sure where you are getting your info. There were a number of mills located in the area and they did not have much trouble getting the ore down the mountain to the mill sites. I don't think there was a us treasury agent on site. As to transportation, it was not a problem getting ore down the mountain, and by the 1900s there was electricity to the mines so fuel was not a problem as most pumps to keep the mines dry and mills were converted to electric motors. The ore piles consist of two types of material, rock which was on both sides of the vein they were following (making the shaft or drift wide enough to get in men and originally mules to cart out the ore, and some of the vein rock (ore) which did not appear to have mineralization to the miners (and to the mine engineers who were also pretty good geologists. The problem today is the same as it was 100 years ago. Can the ore be extracted, milled, smelted and refined at a profit. It was difficult then and is difficult today as we can see from the fact that they have not received any revenue from the concentrates they shipped. They have a lot of work to do before this company makes any money. geomine

In my opinion, there is no problem at the smelter or the refinery. The problem is probably with the concentrate, possibly with the other minerals that are tied up with the gold and silver. If you build or buy a smelter, what size are you going to buy, one to process the concentrate from 100 tons of ore per day, or bigger to handle the ore when you start producing from the mine? Until SFMI actually releases a report on this, we are all just guessing. You may also want to check out what it would really take to put in a smelter, have they ran the electrical lines to the plant, would there be enough power, or would the smelter run on gas? They have enough problems than to try to run a smelter. They just need to figure out if the concentrates they are producing can be smelted and refined at a profit. If according to the PR and many post here by people who claim to know and based on the photos, they have processed a lot of material and should have a lot of concentrates. There is no reason that they would hold these unless there is some problem with refining them into gold and silver bars. I think they are trying to figure all this out before they release another faulty PR. geomine

"it takes some time for smelters to process". We cannot blame the lack of reported results on the smelter. Please read the company PRs starting with Oct 2010 "arrangements have been made with a reputable smelting house". Nov 4, "Company awaits its first cash revenue". Nov 18, "Company still awaiting its first revenue from the sale of its first shipment of concentrates". Nov 30 "First melted pour occured on November 22, 2010" and "283.3 lbs of dore bars which are currently being assessed" and Jan 11, 2011 "awaiting settlement from the brokerage account"

The problem is with management not reporting the results. Maybe the results are good and maybe not. It would seem strange that they have done all this cheerleading and are then silent if a touchdown was scored? I am not bashing this stock and I am not selling my shares, but there is a lot of cheerleading on this board to explain away the lack of reporting of the results. Also we were told that they would be shipping more concentrate, but we have no PRs on this. Hope the new President will do a better job of informing the stockholders of what is going on.

The Laurion press releases are nice and it would be great to see something like this for Silver Falcon, but you need to re read those press releases. Yes in the tailing pond, there is more gold in the lower area and yes it could have settled out. But that was the press release for the tailing pond. There was another press release for the waste ore/rock stockpile. The waste ore/rock pile (which is similar to what silver falcon is dealing with) release did not contain that statement, Gold content may have been correlated to grain size, but they did not mention settling to the bottom unless I missed something.

What does bad weather in Boise have to do with the smelter returns??? As far as I know there is no smelter in Boise or in the immediate area (maybe one in Nevada or in Northern Idaho, but not sure of that) and since they have never told us where the smelter is (Germany?, China?, Canada?) and it is unlikely that bad weather would impact a smelter (it is not outside). No, I think the delay is due to bad pr and or information provided by the company.

You can send samples to Chemex Labs in Reno, Nevada for analysis by x-ray fluorescence. however, In my opinion, and I have completed reserve studies for ore deposits, you will be wasting your time and money. One sample does not mean anything. In order to do anytype of analysis of what the ore body may be worth, you need a statistical sound sampling program, including representative samples, so that you can get an idea of what the entire ore body or the tailing or ore pile contains. I have been on the mountain and I have looked at the tailing/ore piles outside of the mine shafts. There have probably been over a hundred other geologists looking at those piles over the last 20 years, and numerous field trips taken there by geologic societies. What we or I believe that we know is:

1. there was good ore there when they quit mining
2. Some of the material piled up outside of the mine shafts would be considered ore as it contains gold/silver in sufficient amounts to making it profitable if there is enough of it there and you can process it at a reasonable cost.
3. Some of the material piled up outside of the mine shafts do not contain much gold/silver. This material was removed, because the mining shafts and tunnels were wider than the gold/silver vein that was being mined (needed to get men and equipment, mules, carts, etc inside the tunnels, drifts and shafts).
4. Collecting individual or multiple samples of only what looks like high grade ore will not tell anyone the expected returns on this investment.
5. There is so much that we do not know about the milling process, how many total tons of ore did they process. how many times did the ore have to be run thru the mill to grind the ore to the right grain size, how many times did they have to process the grindings over the shaker table to finally get the amount of concentrates that were sent to the smelter, etc, etc, etc.
6. All we have right now that SFMI can process is the material outside of the shafts. As far as I can determine they have no permits for mining in the mountains, or reentering the mines or draining water out of the mines, and yes they do have to have permits to do that, a verbal approval is just not going to do it. To get to the underground mining of these claims will take some time and money, and we will not see that anytime soon.

In my opinion, all that anyone can say for sure about this operation is that yes there are gold and silver deposits here. Current in the ground ores are probably about the same grade that was mined in the past. There is a significant amount of material piled up outside of many of the shafts and there is some gold/silver in the material We have a mill and there has been a load of concentrates sent to some smelter and we have dore bars poured and are being tested for content (or this has already been completed.) Right now, just about everything else that has been posted on this board is speculation, and in fact purchasing this stock is speculation, which is what all of us are doing here. purchasing stock and speculating on if it goes up or goes down. Some of us are holding it as a long term speculation.

Geomine

I am not sure that the pr is driving the price and agree with others that what is said on the board probably does not impact the price, but the prs are not really very informative and you can read whatever you want between the lines. While I would not compare SFMI with Santa Fe Gold Corp, you may want to read some of their pr. They seem to send one out at least once per month, and they have recently sent (October 2010) concentrate to the smelter and now they are reporting a long term contract with the smelter. Take a look at the stock for the last several days.

geomine

Oryx: could you please refer me to the information on the closure of the smelter because of weather? Is the smelter in Idaho or Nevada or where? If you know the name and location of the smelter please tell us, I do not recall this being mentioned anywhere. I am not sure why a smelter would be closed because of weather? employees can't get to work? or what. This does not make any sense to me. geomine

thanks for that info, I hope that is where they took the concentrate, would probably get the results quicker.

Last week I asked about possible smelters/refiners of gold/silver in the US where the concentrates could have been sent. Since then I have searched for a US or canadian smelter but have not found one that takes concentrates. Does anyone local have any idea where the concentrates were sent? I know that some small gold/silver mines are using smelters in China or Germany. If this is where SMFI sent the concentrates, it will be awhile before we hear about the amount of gold/silver that was recovered and it would be difficult to ink the profits this year. geomine