Happy Saturday, Apes.
We ran five editions this week, and the tape spent most of it arguing with itself. The dollar ripped to a seven-week high, gold and silver wobbled, and oil whipsawed on every Hormuz headline.
The drill bit didn't care. Four of the five most-read editions led with real rock, confirmed at depth or along strike.
Here's the week, ranked by what you actually opened.
One housekeeping note before the countdown: this is still a small list, so treat the ranking as directional, not gospel.
It's built from open rate first, then clicks, then web traffic.
Friday's edition has had barely a day in your inbox, so its spot at #5 is partly a timing penalty.
#1: A Bonanza Intercept Cuts Through a Red Day for Metals
NexGold Mining pulled 14.07 g/t gold over 7.0 metres, including 95.70 g/t over 1.0 metre, out of the Goldlund deposit in Northwestern Ontario, plus a second hit of 9.76 g/t over 8.0 metres. It landed on a day when gold, silver, and copper all backed off together as the DXY ran to a seven-week high.
The same edition caught Washington floating a 90-day diesel export ban that knocked Valero, Marathon, and Phillips 66 lower, Brixton Metals optioning a Swedish silver camp with mining records back to 1635, and Gran Tierra setting an October 9 vote on selling its Colombia and Ecuador business for roughly $1.33 billion.
Why it topped the list: 55.3% open rate, best of the week.
Company-specific rock beating a macro red day is the whole thesis of this newsletter in one headline. Add a policy fix that hurt the very refiners it was meant to help, and you had a lot to open.
#2: A BC Junior Drills 166 Grams of Gold a Tonne
Cambria Gold Mines dropped the loudest hole of the week at its Premier project near Stewart, BC: 166.22 g/t gold and 3,383 g/t silver over 3.1 metres, including 1.1 metres at 467 g/t gold and 9,510 g/t silver. Premier shut down in 1957, and Cambria's bet is that it ran out of capital, not ore.
On the energy side, Tourmaline sold down $287.5 million of its Topaz royalty stake to buy back its own stock, and TC Energy agreed to sell its Guadalajara-Manzanillo gas line for $560 million.
Why it ranked here: 54.1% open rate.
Grade like that pulls in generalist money, not just the gold faithful. The skeptic's footnote still stands: one spectacular hole doesn't make a mine, so watch whether the follow-up holes confirm continuity.
#3: A Mexican Silver Vein Runs Better Than a Kilogram a Tonne
Minaurum Silver hit 1,469 g/t silver-equivalent over 0.90 metres, including 2,425 g/t AgEq over 0.50 metres, at the San Jose vein on its production-permitted Alamos project in Sonora, with a resource update targeted for the second half of 2026.
Meanwhile, Shell and its LNG Canada partners were reported close to a final investment decision on doubling Kitimat to 28 million tonnes a year, and Washington swapped its diesel ban idea for phone calls asking refiners to hold back exports voluntarily.
Why it ranked here: 53.9% open rate.
A kilogram-a-tonne headline sells itself, but the widths are narrow, so don't extrapolate that grade across the deposit. The LNG Canada Phase 2 decision is the bigger long-run story: it's the single largest swing factor for Montney gas and AECO pricing this decade.
#4: Luca Mining Buys a $385 Million Copper Mine
Capstone Copper agreed to sell its Cozamin mine in Zacatecas to Luca Mining for up to $385 million: $275 million cash, $15 million in Luca shares, $35 million deferred, and up to $60 million tied to copper prices. That turns Luca into a three-mine polymetallic producer overnight.
The same edition had Generation Mining closing the last $240 million for Marathon, Radisson hitting 68.24 g/t gold over 6.2 metres two kilometres under the old O'Brien mine, and oil sliding below $100 on Iran diplomacy hopes.
Why it ranked here: 52.9% open rate
Majors are still paying up for cash-flowing copper at today's prices. That's the structural supply-gap argument showing up as an actual cheque, not an analyst slide.
#5: A Dryden Gold Hole Holds Grade at 300 Metres
Dryden Gold returned 7.88 g/t gold over 12.70 metres, including 46.05 g/t over 1.90 metres, near surface at Gold Rock, and the key hole confirmed mineralization roughly 300 metres down. The Elora structure now shows continuity across 350 metres of strike.
Oil ripped back toward $94 as Hormuz traffic dropped to three commodity vessels in a day, Canada's rig count jumped 11 to 208, and Atlas Energy's TSXV Sandbox graduation freed 110.8 million escrowed insider shares.
Why it ranked here: 48.7% open rate, with the shortest time in inboxes of any edition this week.
Depth continuity is what separates a cool drill hole from a mineable deposit. Expect this one to climb as the weekend opens catch up.
1957: two mines that closed that year delivered this week's loudest grade.
The Pattern Worth Noticing
Two of this week's bonanza hits came from mines that closed in the same year. Cambria's Premier in BC and Radisson's O'Brien in Quebec both shut down in 1957, and both just delivered triple-digit gold grades.
That's the old-camp thesis in action: the ore didn't run out, the capital and the technology did. Past-producing districts come with roads, mill history, and decades of data already in the drawer.
The catch hasn't changed either. Grade at depth costs more to mine than grade at surface, so hit rates and headline holes are not mine economics until a resource says so.
Keep your grades high, and your dilution low.
See you Monday. ⛏️