Just a little bit of history on CTDT. Most know this but for those who dont:
Originally Mr. Snaper worked with a group called Sweetwater Resources. His desire was to do R&D on the Magnatek process to prove the concept and then continue to develop it. Unfortunately Sweetwater pumped the stock against Mr. Snapers wishes. The stock spiked to $2.00 per share but was no where near production. It was only a concept therefore pps came crashing down.
Because of thsi Mr. Snaper asked his friend and "money man" David from Canada who helped him bring in $550,000 to develop Centaurus. He bought out the Sweetwater partners and formed CTDT. His goal was to use the $550,000 strictly on R&D but he ended up spending most of it on legal fees gaining back control of the patent. Because of this he ran short on finalizing the R&D.
Ultimately he only had about $50,000 to pay for the leasing of a machine to run test.
Utilizing a leased machine from a company in Rhode Island they ran multiple test runs of the process (as many as they could afford). They would make changes to several components of the process each time. They tried different sizes of vessels (aluminum tubes that held the carbon), several different mixtures of carbon while trying different settings on the machine itself (which dicates the amount of heat, time and pressure) used in the process.
The results they got were mixed but with some of the configurations they got "diamond dust" and small fragments of diamond. On one of the configurations they produced a diamond large enough to be sent to the GIA for grading.
Without knowing it was machine produced the GIA certified it as a true diamond. CTDT has the letter - this is fact not rumor.
So at this point CTDT had proven the concept but still needed a lot of research to develop a measuring system that could withstand the enormous heat and pressure created running the process.
There are a lot of names many here recognize that are involved in the history. While David was the money man Mr. Snaper brought in Mr. Prentice to act as CEO and LT to assist in research and administration.
Mr. Prentice did very little to advance the company or bring in funding. LT did his best to keep the company current on filings and investors informed but tended to overstate things and go WAY beyond the first step of CTDT's purpose in his blog. My guess is LT and Mr. Snaper would talk high level science and what might be possible with Centaurus and LT would share a lot of the theory as given fact.
Ultimately Prentice was relieved because he failed to do anything. As this point David (money man) brought in a potential investment group (this is the group that came in the week before I brought my investment group in) and they ultimately worked a deal to help develop the company.
Of course we all thought this would fix management issues. Unfortunatley the new group canned LT and all of sudden no one was minding the farm when it came to SEC filings. Delisle was named chairman and he brought in Chas as CEO. Chas wanted to work the development side of the business but did CEO duties until they lured a Nestle executive away and named him CEO. As most here know he did not fix or ensure financial filings were done. The board was asleep at the wheel as well. this is when the company fell two years behind in filings and had the DTC chill placed on them.
What this new group did do was fund further R&D. They hired an additional scientist and worked on the measurement process. Mr. Snaper has told me they solved that problem. I can't verify because they are not in production but he was clear in his response to me. My guess is they can measure now but it still needs refinement.
The Nestle guy was axed and Chas took over handling the CEO job from Los Angeles in a part tiime manner. The financials languished until they hired a new accounting firm to bring them current. Most of us know that the took a full year to accomplish. At that point the company had a DTC chill in place and thought current financials would result in the chill being lifted. Of course that did not happen and has created a strategic problem for the company.
What we do know at this time is that the company is fully current, has taken steps to improve operations (Chas moved to Las Vegas to work full time, hired Chris, etc.).
We have been told the company is moving its operations from Rhode Island to Las Vegas and preparing for full commercialization. Bear in mind that even though some R&D may need to continue that does not preclude some form of production even if not full commercialization. I know some people are questioning funding but they have not had a funding problem since Delisle and Chas have joined them and Chas has indicated they are OK on the funding front at least for the first stages.
There is no doubt that the management and operations of CTDT have been a disaster over the years. They are several years behind where they should be. But as slow as it has been they have been doing the right things for a while now. Chas is working to right the ship. In my opinion it is not an if but a when now. I am prepared to give it some more time.
Long post and I am going to add to it in another one - best of luck everyone.
