the political side of it and then there's the real story there's a lot to unpack right there wasn't quite the interview I thought that was going to be there's a reason for it this will be officially my favorite podcast I've ever done so I I'm curious about you when you started first Majestic in 2001 like how did you you know the some of the people in our audience or entrepreneurs or they're just getting started how did you decide hey I'm going to start a silver mind I'm going to start a Metals company and you know how did you get to there when you started in 2001 yeah no cuz I came from a copper company right so you know I was on the floor of the the banker Soccer change from 84 to 889 so I I worked for three of the largest National Banks in Canada as a Pro Trader so um um and then when everything went electronic and uh all the Floor Traders got laid off in 1989 I found myself out of a job and uh um I start working for I worked for Murray peum actually I'm not sure if you know that name but um um went to work for him for a couple about a year or so and learn the right and wrong things what to do out there and um you know being a you know I love math and I love finance and and uh I just kind of fell into um uh mining because you know Vancouver is you know such a mining Centric uh City and uh yeah it just all kind of came together and then I put first Quantum together in ' 992 um and that was you know more or less just a a series of people I built around me that kind of put that company together was uh I was quite young I was in my early 30s and and uh um it worked out quite well obviously and um you know then I kind of went into retirement in in 2000 watch the uh um NASDAQ Bubble Burst um over the next couple years and saw gold at 250 and silver at five bucks and uh figured it was time to put together another company and then uh you know there's too many gold companies out there as far as I was concerned there was not enough silver companies and silver to me looked like copper um and I decided because there was such a niche market in my opinion because there's no players really out there except for a small handful I figured silver was the place to go and that's um why I put together a Silver Company what's the the addressable market for silver like I when you think about you know as long as I can remember I think I was a kid I was probably 1980 uh I think it was the Hunt Brothers or the Bass Brothers someone tried to Corner the silver market got themselves blown up I have a lot of my friends that accumulate silver like crazy what's the addressable Market there like in your opinion I mean you've been in it for such a long time what is the what does the future of the silver market look like and what's the addressable market for silver look like cuz I know you started aore store which I'm fascinated with too which we'll get to in a second yeah you know I love technology and um uh I guess you know being you know the founder of a copper company I I learned the importance of you know Metals in technology and um um in the early 2000s when I was looking at Silver I realized how important it was in the whole scheme of things when it comes to you know what we do um you know whether it's computers or cell phones or automobiles or refrigerators or or pretty well every single device that we need as the human race consumes silver and I I I figured that was not going to change uh the difference back then was there was no electric cars or solar panels now today you know we have two industries that are consuming 30% of the world supply of silver uh which which didn't exist 10 years ago so last year the human race consumed 1.2 billion ounces of silver and the miners produce 820 million ounces uh and only about some odd 50 million 125 to 150 million is recycled so there's this huge deficit of somewhere between 200 and 300 million ounces last year and that's been going on now for six years in a row uh consumption this year 2024 is expected to be about 1.4 billion ounces uh the miners aren going to produce anymore miners are 820 call it and recycling's not changing much because recycling doesn't pay there's no money in it um so the deficits continue so that has to affect price eventually so I mean obviously you're not going to comment on this but if you looked at your current price of First Majestic and the price of silver there's probably an apex part right where the price of silver gets to a point where first Majestic is printing money well we have in the past um um it's it's you know of course we've got inflation and you know those types of things your employment costs increasing and the PES so has been quite weak which has hurt us unfortunately or I mean the pay been quite strong pardon me um so that that's um um but you know more you know we're we're cash flowing prop positive it's not that's not the issue but um yeah know we you know when so was 50 bucks it was uh a lot of fun um we'll get back there and uh you know we're one of the top three you know call call it in the top there's only three silver companies to buy to buy in the world or actually Four I guess hea K pan americ ourselves so those you know outside of those four um you know who's there to buy and then we we all produce funny enough we all produce about the same amount of silver uh we're all about 10 million ounces of silver you know we are 25 million silver equivalent but that that other amount is is all gold in in in the case of hecka that would be their large largest metal would be zinc in the case of pan americ their largest metal would be gold and calan their largest metal would be uh well it's actually mix lead zinc and and copper actually they produce a bunch of stuff but um yeah so we're we're 50 somewhat percent silver uh Heckler would be probably uh 25 paname would be probably 25 would be about 30 we about 5055 if you're 5055 silver what's the rest gold gold got it got it wow okay well when I met Jason he told me you were his favorite CEO besides me but I think he said that I was his favorite CEO but I he was on my payroll so I I real and he's been talking about interviewing you for like at least 5 years uh so this I don't know why this was an act of God to get you on the show but I'm glad you're here but I think we've been trying to get you on this show for as long as I can remember um I think that was we tried by Twitter but chrisy our producer somehow got you on the show so I'm glad you're here um we're big fans yeah AB absolutely because Keith can talk about it but like La Encantada which is in Mexico that's one of the mins that I think are coming online you know I'll let Keith touch on that but he's got several mines in Mexico that are producing a ton of silver and Keith I don't know why this is and you can talk about this too but in the Earth's crust uh silver is harvested at about a ratio of 7:1 meaning 7 ounces of silver for every 1 ounce of gold but when I do the math today the silver to gold ratio is sitting around 85 or 86 what what that means Todd is uh for every 80 it takes 85 or 86 ounces of silver to actually equal in Fiat 1 ounce of gold I mean it's just a total disconnect historically is it disconnected Keith oh absolutely the um um we can get into it through the throughout the interview but um silver trades a billion ounces of day in the paper markets so we call let's say there's 320 trading days in a year so that's 320 billion ounces of silver trade in the paper markets per year the miners produce 820 million a year so the L you know do the math that's like what to one or something like that so so um uh you know for us you know we're you know the Leverage is crazy so that that's why we open the mint because for us to take our production off the market and you you do that math for us to take 10 million ounces off the market just for easy math that's equivalent of taking three billion ounces out of the paper Market yeah so it's not like spot like be like uh bit right that's the difference between ETF and the the new ibit and the ETFs for Bitcoin they have to have a treasury of 1 to one ratio and then someone like SLV which I'm not a fan of uh it's not a recommendation uh or pslv which I am a fan of which we can talk about yeah there's derivatives there's massive paper uh could be shorting in play obviously um it's like you said it's 4001 how can you trade all that paper when there's not it doesn't make sense to me though because if you have a demand that's greater than what you're mining how's the Demand Being met Keith how's the Demand Being met if you have a demand that's greater than mining no it's a big question and um you know that's why I criticize the silver Institute because uh when we're not members I I I canceled our membership of the silver Institute a few years ago because I'm so displeased with the data that they publish because um you know that's a very valid question I would love to have answers myself um you know I remember when Putin was U you know in the gold vaults um in Russia when he was holding you know his gold bar this is like I guess geez four or five years ago and you know pretty famous photograph of him inspecting the Russian gold hordes that they've been buying over the last several years and uh so he's sing The Vault and I zoom in on the photograph and along the back wall there's this whole line of pallets of silver bars and uh go wow there's a lot of silver there so um and they don't report it so so you know is that where the sil is coming from you know I have no clue um you know we you know we know China's not exporting silver um it's against the law in China to export silver uh we know in India they're buying silver uh they're big big consumers uh so it's a very valid question and it's very secretive industry and we don't have an answer that's a weird that's a weird idea though I mean you saw race recently with Bitcoin the miners are mining 900 they're buying 4,000 40,000 oh when right yeah BL Rock's buying right so the price almost double basically yeah but it took Black Rock like four month three or four months to to buy more than what Michael sailor's been accumulating for seems like it maybe was three or four weeks might very quickly but that's Keith how come like every hard asset and commodity keeping keeping this in mind has moved up significantly from their all-time lows yet silver here sits at $25 an ounce Keith do you think it's the uh the macroeconomic indicators and and like you said um business um everything that has to do with uh silver in all of our products goods and services do you think it's kind of kept suppressed because if it wasn't the goods and services would go through the roof as far as cost goes well you ask the same questions I ask every day so so like if you're if you're Sony or or you know Tesla or BMW doesn't really matter who and uh and and you need to have you know 20 million ounces of silver for your product that you're producing in in 2024 you know you're going to approach um you know the big big Traders which is pretty well JP Morgan or HSBC or you know whoever they are Y and um um you're going to sign a contract for delivery of those ounces and you're going to tell that bank to deliver those oun to whatever Port that they need to be delivered to so as a minor you know we sell our ounces through a Trader to the banks the banks know how many ounces they're going to be getting because you know they know the market quite well of course they leverage those in the paper Market um because they're shorting against that purchase so Sony buys 20 million ounces they leverage that up you know 3 400 times uh uh in in the paper market and it's in their best interest to not allow that that uh spot price to change that dramatically because all of a sudden and that whole run in 2011 from $40 or you know call it you know 35 depends on who you listen to but $40 to $50 that was all short covering and uh the banks were in super stress during that period of time there's talk about you know that's why you know be Sterns I think it was or or whomever ultimately went uh uh went bankrupt because of their big paper derivative position on Silver whether that's true or not who knows but you know there's lots of information on the internet that you can find you know that discusses that topic um you know there's a big short position in the market and it's all held by the Banks and it's all because silver is a very commercial Market uh and it's very thin and that's you know these guys and you know these are young 30 yearold NBAs out out of college that have no clue about you know the supply and demand fundamentals of the metal yet they've been shorting silver for the last 30 years but you know they don't know that the above ground supplies of silver back in the 80s was 5 billion ounces and back then uh there was no electronic uses electronic uses just started coming in today the the above ground supplies are about a billion ounces and it's all an ETS so all that abovegr supply has been eaten away in electronics and it's it's uh no one's um recycling cell phones or computers all that all that computer waste is just thrown into dumps so you got a billion ounces above ground cell phones being thrown away I mean how much of that silver is actually reharvested you know it's a very small amount um um and you know the these are numbers that um you we talk about within the industry that and and you know they're not exact but 90% of all silver that's been mined is gone uh it's it's in waste dumps it's in the ocean you know it's it's gone you know 90% of all gold is been mind is still sitting on the surface in vaults you know in hordes and so on so forth so you know silver is very much depleting asset because you know in this cell phone like you know my little apple here there's about two or three dollars of silver in this thing and to take it out it would cost a fortune because Apple was very good at eding Silver into that circuit board and there's not too many Technologies out there that can extract it in an economical way so no one no one you know recycles computer waste yeah and that's where a lot of our silver goes so it just you know gets you know put in waste UPS unfortunately and U that's what happens Keith I'm pretty um Layman on this and I i' a friend of mine actually my my business partner owns a gold mine in Alaska and he he walked me through how they built it and I'm like insanity so he they take the the raw ore in these big bags and they put them on a boat and they ship them to Germany where they're smelted and they're paid so I'm like you take it from Alaska to Germany I mean this is insane conversation to me and that the the buyers of it know how to buy the bag which I guess they can figure out how much Gold's in there I it seems like insane the way it's done can you walk us through how you mine silver and and and like the steps from we you know we have a mine we you know we do we take a little pick in there and get it out and get a little Cube and how does it go from wherever it starts to wherever it ends yeah well every mind is different and um every country is different uh so it's not a simple answer but um what I can tell you is that it's it's it's AB absolutely almost criminal that we sell silver for 25 bucks an house today y because the Blood Sweat and Tears that goes into the production of that metal is is horrendous and uh it starts from decades ago whereby as a mining company you drill a hole and you're relying on geologists that are telling you okay this is the right place to drill a hole and uh so you believe them and you finance it you got to raise the money so you drill the hole you know crossing your fingers that you actually hit something and L and behold you hit some silver and then you have to drill more holes because you can't just you know relying on holes so you need to drill dozens and dozens and dozens of holes over you know a lengthy period of time you know four five 10 years in some cases so then you have to put out proper disclosure uh to the regulatory authorities uh uh in order to raise substantial money uh you have to you know you're going to rely on the governments to permit the process along the way uh because you know variety of permits are necessary uh you know depending on the size of the property and the size of the asset or the size of the resource that you drilled out uh it depends on the how much money you going to have to raise because that is going to be dependent on the size of the mill you're going to build um so you're you're by 10 years in you're you're you're starting construction um and uh you're you're by the time you're in production you could be you know call it 10 to 15 years in and you're probably um you know 200 million minimum and probably even up towards 500 million or even if it's a larger mine up towards a billion um invested to that point you still don't have any Revenue yet um you're still relying on permits you're still relying on governments you're hoping you're crossing your fingers that the governments don't change regulations don't change that the governments are still supportive of of of what you're doing uh you you hope to get the communities on side you hope to get people you know employed because a lot of times you have to build towns build electrical infrastructure build water infrastructure um um build roads uh because lots of times these these mines are you in the middle of nowhere so now you're 15 years in and you're finally into Revenue so you know whatever the number is 500 million to a billion dollars invested it's going to take you likely 10 years to get your investment back so at that point it's all metal price right and we all know how metal prices fluctuate so you have to have a pretty darn good asset and good people in place that are watching their cost in order to you know pull out a profit from that operation so buy 20 years in 20 some OD years in and every mind's different of course as I said earlier um you start to you know get uh a positive cash flow and hopefully your mind is going to be operating for the next 20 to 30 years after that and the community is is is robust and bustling and you have youve built schools Aventure schools secondary schools um uh and you're educating people and you know their stores opening you know maybe a movie theater in town and uh U you know you built a community from zero from scratch and I've done it myself a number of times you know where we have you know 5,000 people living in a town that's all run or all relying pardon me on this one mind that didn't exist 20 years ago and now it's a Boston community and we are the guys that built it from scratch and we're supplying all the revenue for that community and it's pretty exciting that's why I do mining because I love it and and and this builds a long-term wealth right because these kids that we're bringing up that were putting through school you know go on to University and learn other education and they they build they build wealth among their governments or among among their communities but it's a big job super Capital 15 years that much Capital intensive and you convince someone to let you do that I've done it all my career a't that crazy how do you know the H is any good you have to keep you know you got to rely on professionals around you I've got three ener geologists and 500 Engineers that work for me so that's their job how many times have you drilled the hole and there was nothing there oh many times hundreds of times hundreds of times oh for sure yeah if not more I'm I'm fascinated that you mine in Mexico what's it like in general with the risk the foreign risk of being down there well you know Mexico you know 20 years ago when I put first in chest together was easier for sure um you know September 2023 was our 20th year anniversary uh but you know I put first Quantum together in 1992 so you know I you know I early on in my career you know I'm I'm going to Africa and and I'm surrounded by you know militia and then uh um you know you talk about security issues um you know compare you know Africa to Mexico it's a little bit different issue but you know at least um um the education in Mexico is slightly higher and um um they're you know I don't want to get too much detail but um um I learned a lot about risk when I was operating in Mex when I was operating in Africa so so when I showed up in Mexico in 2002 it was it was quite refreshing to me I think this is great this is like wow this is fantastic um so so first of all first of all they have tacos in Mexico and I've been and I've been to Africa and and nah I love the I love the the Safari but uh i' I'd rather eat the Mexican food I'm just kidding uh but I so so what did you do in what did you do in Africa versus Mexico we M copper yeah so I built the first mine in in in in Africa southern Africa in 35 years so we were the first investment in the copper Bel in 35 years where where was that at in Africa that was noola Zambia Co yeah but like I'm curious about how this is this is what I'm trying to say is like people ask me all the time like Todd how did you raise 500 million how do you do this how you do that and I said well this is how I did it but the but the question is really you went to Zambia how did you know that there was a copper mine in Zambia like you you you had to make a decision to go to Zambia you didn't randomly just look at a map and say okay Zambia is the place I'm going you had Intel that led you to get there and I don't need to be specific but it was it just industry knowledge or someone called you up on the phone said hey I got a great idea and it resonated how did you get to Zambia it was a phone call uh so so um you know I put together first Quantum uh back in '92 as I said and uh I was looking around for assets back then uh uh Venezuela was quite hot uh Peru was quite hot there was a pretty famous um Discovery uh in in Venezuela back in the early 90s and so there's a lot of focus from the institutional money around the world on that part of the world so you know we focus our early efforts on on South America and we are intent we're going down the path of acquiring an asset in that region of the world and uh um due to my contacts my institutional contacts I received a telephone call from a fellow in London who I respect and he said hey look you know this guy just came into my office Phil Pascal and uh who just passed away about a month ago um um uh you know he just walked into my office with his copper ass said in Zambia that he should really look at it it's quite interesting so I flew over to London and looked at the asset and uh um it was quite interesting looking good grades um uh obviously and it was already defined so the resort was defined we knew how many ounces or how many pounds of copper existed we knew what the grade was um so enough work was done on the property um for us to you know make a decision so we flew down to Zambia and looked at it and fell in love with it and uh within so I I decided to buy it uh put uh Phil Pasco on as chairman of the company um at that time and uh you know that was his you know I guess position he received um as part of the acquisition and uh um uh then we went and raised the money and uh we built the mill and uh by the end of uh and that was 95 and then uh by by 98 we're in production and by 2000 uh we had 9,000 employees what happened what happened with first Quantum I left in 2000 um and uh uh yeah wented to S retirement until 2002 does it still operate down there oh yeah so first Quantum is$ 13 billion market cap it's uh uh it's one of the largest copper companies in the world wow so wow well I must be not paying attention I only I only trade Freeport for some reason I know why remember that we traded oh my God we traded the hell out of that thing sorry you know I I I probably know first Quantum I'm just not paying attention 13 High success you can't take credit for the last you know since I left but um um you know but nevertheless it's a very well well respected highly successful CER company so Jason he ke said we could ask any question he didn't care so I'm going to let you ask some questions and I'm going to come back to what what the future of of first Majestic is after your questions well there's well one question is do you are you going to consider uh having any third parties sell first Majestics uh bars and rounds from your store or is it just going to be direct from your website the issue is that uh I don't want to sell silver wholesale yeah um um you know the the whole purpose of Us opening our own mint is to C capture that that premium um you know we we ran into an issue whereby you know we you know we're using you know I don't want to name mince you know you we all know the mints that that are are there in the United States and uh you know I'm not sure they they looked at us as competition um you know but we would have you know hundreds of thousands of ounces of silver sitting on the floor of these mints and we'd have you know orders lined up to produce you know 100,000 1 oce rounds uh you know a th000 kilo bars and and we we have orders in the system you know we need these we need these ounces delivered because we've got orders for these ounces and uh they would delay and delay and delay and uh you know it would take them four to six months to turn our oun around so you know our inventories were quite high sitting on the floors of these thirdparty mints which is our silver uh which we of course have to account for but um nevertheless we just weren't able to get them out into the marketplace so um we said screw this and uh we're going to do this ourselves and so I made the decision about a year ago and we started buying up the equipment and uh we we got fantastic staff of uh men professionals that uh have worked for any of the other minting companies that we're able to uh uh convince to come across now we put together a pretty fantastic management team uh we're two weeks in so uh after about a year of Construction and building the team we're now producing we're only going to produce three products to start with now we're producing kilo bars 10 oz bars and 5 oun bars and uh yeah we expect to Triple our sales in 2024 compared to 2023 Keith so I would on the site today and I I noticed a lot of the stuff was sold out you're what do you think the supply is going to be again it's the 1 o bar the 5 O Bar and the 10 yeah we're producing 5 oz bars 10 oce bars and kilo bars and kilo bars is that going to be is that an Elco Keith Elco Nevada no in Las Vegas it's in Las Vegas well we're we're right here yeah wait wait hold on a second the the store is no the mint is the mints in Vegas yeah it is yes and how much do you think you can Min a year there you know we want our entire production to go through the mid so we we produce 10 million ounces and um don't forget like I said earlier that's three billion paper ounces I want to take off the market so if I can get our entire production through the mint that's going to really shake up the the industry a little bit these Banks expect to see those ounces on their books right yeah and they're expecting to deliver deliver those ounces to commercial buyers like the Sony's and the Teslas and the BMWs of the world if if I take that metal off the market and what's that going to do to their book right that's the whole strategy if I can convince K and heckin and other mining companies to to to put their silver through our mint that's going to take more metal off the market do you think you'll have the capacity in the work the workers to do that that the mint as it sits today has a capacity of about three and half million ounces that's one shift four days a week in in in Nevada for whatever reason people only work four days a week I'm not sure exactly why that is but I wish that were the case I don't think that's the case they're playing Kino the other day yeah uh so yeah so so what so what we would do is put a second shift on and U yeah but are you are you you said it was two weeks ago so are is the store selling enough now where you would sell out that way or is it just too early right now the the store is still under first Majestic silver um the first mint inauguration or launch is uh is in a couple days and we we we we'll put out a new release once that happens will you have a an actual retail storefront where Jason Bartholomew could walk in you know it's funny it's do you say that because um I was actually talking to my VP uh the other day and I said to him hey let's find a little store on the strip and just there just a little poster now it doesn't have to be big yep just something small so when because there's so much traffic that' be you know great to have a little you know kiosk or little store on the Strip so we may do it well we'll have to talk about that so funny he says funny do you have any idea how long we've been talking about being a to sell your silver we probably talking about for what a couple years right for sure because you how long have you been considering going I mean it's long as I can remember so maybe I'm wrong in timing maybe it's cuz I'm 54 it's a blur but have we not been saying this for like ever like maybe he'll let us sell his silver Keith's the only one that has well to my knowledge Keith is the only one that had the coones to do this in my from what I've seen can you not say balls on a podcast yeah all right the balls ke the reason we say this is cuz we have a we have a fairly big following we wanted to actually you know we were actually thinking about hey you could buy this through us and we would you guys would be here and you know that's a that's a whole different conversation I guess for something offline well what we should do is is create a a a stamp with your name on it well we would like a risk off or a risk on a stamp with my bar or some advertisement or something because that's the whole that we're getting contacted we just signed a deal with a third party and uh um to produce you know ounces for them with their seal on their stamp on it so we're going to be approaching hockey teams uh baseball teams uh football teams colleges universities you know do these special runs that other mens don't want to do it's a headache for them Indie 500 special if you think about well yeah I guess some I know someone involved with the Indie 500 do you know anyone yeah I know I do too uh we we have an we have an 8500 te all podcast no no no no we got better names than that you don't want to put my name on the coin we have an indie team we have an indie team oh we race the biggest race in the world the 8500 so um but but you think you're going to eventually take all your production offline that's the goal I want to squeeze all these Banks wow that's a that's an interesting idea this is amazing right yeah but but in terms of selling it though you right now your the process is using your bullion store yeah it's all online um you know we have we have 85,000 shareholders worldwide so so you know our shareholders are probably 30 to maybe even as high as 50% of our of our sales uh and then we don't advertise so you know now that the m is going to be up and running we're going to put a PR budget behind it you know we're going to do a little bit of advertising and you know try to get those sales ramped up when when will you have the the 1 oce rounds uh probably June July that that equipment is not on site yet it's been ordered but it doesn't arrive until April May and it's going to take a while to get it up and running and so on so but you have the bars in in production now okay the bar the bars are in production yeah can anyone buy silver through you and just leave it stored with you or do they all have to take delivery you know it's a it's um you know we've been debating that internally for some time and uh you know of course storing you know has its own risks around it and um you know we're just in the early stages of running the economics on that we haven't made a a decision but I think you know in some cases it could make sense Keith do you anticipate um this is all comes together here so jerett Canyon do you anticipate that you might run go open reopen jerrett Canyon if the conditions are favorable and everything comes together and then you start minting gold as well you know there's not a lot of money in mint and gold because uh because it's such high value uh you know people aren't willing to pay the premiums on it um you know your your cost of stamping a gold coin is the same as stamping a silver coin but but but yet you know for whatever reason you can you know that percentage or that markup on Silver is just much greater if you if you get $50 on on a coin uh above spot on a percentage basis that's quite small uh but but you get you know $2 or3 on a on on a a silver coin you know it doesn't sound like a lot but on a percentage basis it makes a big difference so you know we're really focused on Silver I'm not sure if we'll we we might do some small runs on gold but that's not the focus but regarding Jared Canyon um yeah for sure like our expectations are to get that mine back up and running uh you know to be quite Frank with you uh you when we bought that a couple years ago we should have shut it down on day one um but we we you know we didn't want to be that Canadian mining company that you know bought this mine in Elco Nevada you know third largest city in Nevada that laid off 500 workers on day one you know we we we just didn't want the bad press so we we you know we figured okay let's let's keep it open we know the flaws we we you know we know the issues you know let's make the investment let's keep everyone employed and let's try to get this done and it just turned out that it was just too costly and we're burning way too much cash and uh uh we underestimated the investment unfortunately and we had to shut it down and U so we're going to reset you know start from scratch and uh which we're doing right now and make the investment over the next 24 months and uh and then get it back hopefully up and running uh in 2026 yeah that's one of only three in the state if correct me if I'm wrong that has the road which is highly valuable um and then you bought that from Eric sprout right and he's a large shareholder of first Majestic Eric is the largest shareholder no no but he's a he's yeah yeah used yeah I mean he's got the P pslv ETF right pslv is in my it's my opinion is the most if you're going to get exposure to Silver through an ETF that would be the one to do it they actually buy take delivery of silver yeah they actually own the silver yeah so unlike SLV which is a probably a JP Morgan Chase product or well they and they just own paper they don't you don't own physical metal yeah what do you make of the Costco um it's pretty fascinating I'm beyond fascina massive demand which tells me that you know Keith has something here for sure and a retail store would be really cool you could have like uh how how open pit mines are done how everything you could have the history of it you could it's Elco Nevada you could talk about Jared Canyon which was producing since 1981 like 1972 Discovery like I went to Virginia City which is the old comto and Keith knows this I went down into a mining shaft like I don't even know how far down and they're showing me how the miners used to do this stuff in the dark and how they would how they would not Chop you know hit their AR chop their hands off like picks and axes it's just like crazy he said it's it's just like unbelievable that they're selling silver the way it's harvested and the production and how it how hard it is for $25 an ounce in Fiat which that's another topic how it's priced in Fiat I don't I don't like that Keith if you got into Costco with your silver and they said we want to sell 100 million and a quarter hundred million dollars worth would that be possible or not well our our total revenues last year were 600 some odd million um so it it would be a bit of a challenge but it would be interesting wouldn't it it would be fun to try let basically I'm not sure how we' pull it off but um yeah all and when you when you book your total revenues is that like just the actual ending sell price for what you sell your silver or your gold at is there any other revenue from it other that's not mining related well the mint of course would be included in our our total revenues um no it's just the sale of metal Silver and Gold would be our total revenue line and it's reported you know in our financial statements and the number is around 600 mil so so when you see people and I apologize this is an education for me we want to talk to you forever but I'm just not as smart about Metals as I am I guess with stocks but uh and I don't know if I'm smart there after 34 years I still think I'm learning stuff every day there um is the is the mxes of the world that sell I guess precious metals silver directly are they are they going to get it from someone like you and reselling it or is there just a big enough spot Market where they're lining it up and and reselling it to someone else like I I'm just I'm perplexed as to how there isn't enough silver to sell yet the price is I I still just it doesn't make any sense to me I know it doesn't you said it doesn't make sense to you either but like you're selling 600 million worth of metal a year right so he who's buying it besides your your your your shareholders who's buying it well it's all commercials so so without the mint um uh we have a Trader in New York uh who we phone up and uh who or email and I say sell $100,000 o to $25 ounce and uh he sends an email back sold so that that 100,000 ounces he they cut a check to us within a couple of days you know after that sale they you that metal goes through the refinery gets spit out uh uh in triple 9 you know 1,000 house commercial bars and that buyer or the or the trader tells the the the um the refinery uh where to send that metal so it'll go to El ABC electronics company in California or it'll go to a window manufacturer somewhere it'll go wherever you'll go to a freezer manufacturer you know whatever you just yeah so we don't actually see that part of the business um because the Traders take care of all of that so it's they send it wherever it goes it all goes commercial and you have to deliver physical delivery they're 1,000 ounce commercial bars right and you and you're told where to deliver it and you deliver to the electronics company you got paid and that's it right and and I and I presume that's a different margin than you just selling can you sell for spot or do you have to kind of edge that back a little bit for the Trader or what happens no the trader deals with that so they they get paid from the buyer like commission for that trade we we sell it at spots so got if Silver's trading at $25 right this moment we get paid exactly $25 so so oh but so then because they're not minted like the ones he selling they have to go through the mint that that adds a cost to them right yeah that's our cost yep that's our cost so so the Dory bars from the mine get shipped to the refinery in in our case uh Assa in Salt Lake City because that's the primary Refinery that we use and um and they charge us you know it's like it's not very much it's like 25 cents an house so so and and and and and our our Dory bars are 95 to 97% silver and and and they refine it down to triple9 or 49 and that's what they sell got it right so for us to then resell them so it's very interesting it sounds like to me uh and there's of course lifting cost which I'm not going to get into but the the cost of you getting that silver out of the ground is the difference between spot and your margin uh is how you make your money got it that's right yeah and our costs right now are about you know1 15516 an ounce so you know we're selling at 25 so it's you know we're making okay money it's not huge but it's not bad so so you've been at first Majestic for it sounds like 22 years um you're doing 600 million in sales what you you have this Initiative for the bullion store uh you might open up one on the strip in Vegas you're going to try to take all that commercial paper out of the market and be and sell through your mint you got 85,000 shareholders worldwide what uh how old are you now 63 you're well you look better than me wow you look great I thought you were my age Jesus Christ uh what are your plans for the future keep building uh you know we we uh you know our goal is to become the largest Silver Company in the world so so a small goal a small goal I got you well you know it's um you got to have goals right it's it's it's not easy you know the problem is with silver it's such a rare mineral it's people don't understand this uh um you know Jason brought up earlier in the conversation that uh you know we're we're we're mining 7 to one so for every 1 ounce of gold we mine worldwide we only mine seven o of silver you know and that that and we're training an 85 to1 you know which is like bananas uh you know explain that one to me so so that tells you uh that silver is a lot rarer than the market thinks it is and uh I can tell you that you know we we scour the planet looking for Silver Mines good Silver Mines we could we could load our portfolio up with gold mines tomorrow if we wanted to if we wanted to become a gold company and forget about silver we that would be like a matter of just a you know a couple a couple of months of deals um but uh uh but silver it's um it's shockingly how rare it is H and uh you know we um are looking to build um you know through acquisition uh but but it's tough It's what you talk what I want to talk about Nevada it's you know the silver state it was originally uh big time time silver is there opportunity still in Nevada to like go find Silver Mines or does that not exist anymore it is um you know you had Howard Hughes you had um um um Charles swab um as very early investors in Nevada you know in the silver belt you know tonopa you know is a famous area Y in Nevada you know which produced a ton of silver um you know there's a couple of Junior companies active there which first Majestic and shareholders uh we own positions of a couple of Juniors that are active in that area we've done site visits and we continually watch this silver space you know looking for potential Acquisitions but you know our shareholders would not be too pleased with me you know if we just go buy an exploration project um you know it doesn't do us any good you know we for us to move the needle you know we need to buy something that's either in production or permanent ready for construction um you we can't wait 10 years for you know permits and you know all that stuff that needs to happen so we let we you know we let the Juniors you know fight that battle and uh and let them get to a point where it makes sense for us and uh you we we've got tolds in a number of Juniors and uh you know we're actively looking at Arizona Nevada you know Mexico of course you know we know Mexico very well but even outside of uh United States and Mexico in Canada Europe Australia we're we're pretty active who who owns first Majestic I mean what are your Holdings as a public company relative to institutional Holdings what's what's the what's the demographic look like of your shareholder base well it's all public but I own um over four million shares um um my my share position has has never gone backwards except when I got divorced um my my ex-wife took half position unfortunately but um yeah but since then it's I don't know anyone that's ever had that problem Keith you're the only one that's ever had that issue yeah I know anyways it's it's it's still Bittersweet but nevertheless um so so um but every since then my position's always gone up in over the years and uh um we have uh I guess the biggest would be vanak um you know they they own 20 million shares or some crazy amount um and then a bunch of ETFs uh we're about you know probably 30 30 40% institutionally held uh and the rest would be retail we have a very large retail shareholder base um uh predominant United States we and uh we've got a huge retail shareholding in the United States uh we're broadly followed um in in the mining sector in the silver space uh Germany Switzerland um um uh Austria UK we've got very large shellholders over there as well you uh you talked about um you know what you presently have and like it just from a Layman's perspective we're talking to a Layman like me how much how many years of production do you have left with your current stuff you have if you didn't make any new acquisitions and you m this all in as far as you could into the ground how much production do you have left you know it's always uh you know a tough question um because these are underground Minds um uh and and and these are veins that you never know when they end you know they they can end tomorrow or or they can go on for many many years in the future uh like an open pit mine is quite Define you know you can drill it out you know exactly what's there um and you can actually put a life of mine around it and it's pretty certain uh but underground minds are not the same uh it and then economically it never makes sense to drill because you'll blow your brains out drilling it out because these veins go on for kilometers and kilometers and kilometers and it just doesn't make sense so you try to keep the life of mind uh between three to five years um as a mining company that's kind of a magic number that way you can have you know you give long-term plans and so on so forth but you know our biggest mind send Demus um has been in production for 300 years um I don't know when it's going to end um uh no times no time that we can measure um Sant Elena uh on paper it has a seven-year mind life but it's going to be you know much longer than that uh linol Tata are other are small mine it's always been plagued by a very small or short mine life two to three years because that's the nature of that particular type of War body so um it would cost way too much money to expand that so we just keep it at 2 three years um and we hope it'll just keep you know we've owned that mine since um 2005 and the mine life has always been two to three years those you have a lot of gold coming out of those too um it looks like was in San yeah well 73 74,000 ounces yeah sanus is 5050 silver gold and San Elena is 6040 gold silver yeah those are nice they're all underground too which avoids any kind of uh things that are going on with the regime change down there a lot of people don't realize that I was actually G to ask that question about the the Mexico potential ban of open pit mining is that going to happen is it it what's what's the status there well it's likely not going to happen but um you know it's a lot of politicking um you know uh uh you know he amlo's um you know he he's I hate to say say anti- investment but I guess you know it's to be kind to him I guess that's the best way of putting it you know he doesn't like foreign investment period yeah um uh you know it's you know as I said earlier in earlier in the interview you know 20 years ago when I put the company together you know Mexico was a little bit of a different country you know permitting back then was you know four to six months to permit a mind um and and today you know it'll take you a couple years to to permit the same same situation so it's become a lot more difficult and we're hoping that the elections that are coming up on June 2nd are going to change things uh you know rumors are we we more or less know who the incoming uh guard is or the new president is going to be and you know she seems reasonable we hope we're crossing our fingers um uh but look we're we're we're in Mexico that's the bottom line we you know you can't pick up a mine and move it to another country so we we have 4,000 employees in Mexico we're a big player in Mexico we're I think we're the third largest uh silver producer in the entire country uh so you know we're we're active in eight states um so you know we're we're pretty well known but so when I asked about the future of first Majestic you being 63 would you ever be a seller or is that not something that's on your radar in the future being meaning selling all of first Majestic well you know when you know first Quantum you know going back to then i' be you know I'd use that as an example um um you know look if I'm on the road talking about the company I'm on stage you know and then there's you know 500 people in the room listening to me to a presentation I can't exactly be on the offer selling stock you know that that to me is immoral um so so uh unless unless somehow you know you're Elon Musk and you say look uh you know I I I want to you know my stock is at some kind of crazy number and is it okay if I sell a little bit um and and and the sh would say okay go ahead and do it okay may maybe there's there's an exception there but for the you know whe I I can't imagine that happening but maybe no I I I think I I think I didn't make that I didn't I think I didn't make that clear I mean like would you be a seller of all the first Majestic meaning would the company be sold because if you look at a production situation right and people want to have production uh the stock seems very inexpensive would there not be an opportunity for someone just to buy all of the production and own the whole company or is that not something that you see in the cards down and I'm by the way I'm we're totally speculating I'm just getting your idea of what the next 10 years looks like yeah no look there's two things that are going to happen in my opinion well three things nothing happens which would be one of the three um and we continue to grow our business and and we come become too big to buy we're we're almost there now uh there's only a couple players out there that are bigger than us in the silver space um um uh so the other two things that could potentially happen is a big conglomerate like you know one of the big copper players like a BHP or you know one of the huge mining fre yeah Freeport you know they they decide hey we want to get into silver uh because you know the silver story is so fantastic and we want exposure so they want to buy a silver company and our name gets put on their table so that could happen the the other thing that could happen is is the technology companies and this is kind of like you know my thesis and I've said this before but you know if you listen you know you watch the movie ioot for example you know you've got a conglomerate like an apple you know who owns basically the entire supply chain and uh you know like you know these big conglomerates the technology conglomerates you know they're they're at Mercy of their supply chain and and they you know they they don't influence their their commodity prices that they're you know having to be exposed to so you know you see Elon you know looking at nickel and and lithium you know whe you know whether that you know gets um you know uh you know whe whether the rest of the industry looks at that as as a goal and then they start looking at hey look we want to own the entire mining sector you look at as funny my VP Corp Dev showed me yesterday a slide Nvidia is five times the market cap of the entire mining sector All Metals combined copper uh coal uh nickel every single metal combined the video is five times the market cap can you imagine yes I can actually I I I I I'm in the equity market and I I own a data center in Michigan in like my company and two in Montana and those data centers are selling for I don't know a few billion dollars and I own a 300 megawatt data center that's cresly running 300 me or 30 megawatts and I look at the valuation of our whole company which is I think uh what our Public Market float is 15 million it's insanity and I actually think uh what you're selling silver for is insanity I mean I think you're literally giving it away it's kind of crazy um and I don't mean that in a negative way like you're doing it I mean the market is the market but like it's insane how cheap it is and I think it's a a fascinating story that you're going to sell directly to to people you're almost democratizing the ability for people to get silver to own your company and to buy it from you I think it's just a great model Jason's really turned me on to what you're doing and trying to get done and I look forward to meeting you I mean it's really a fascinating model we actually were kind of hoping we could help you sell it but it sounds like to me your shareholder base is going to do that for you I'll be one of them because I noticed that I get a 50 Cent discount when I'm a shareholder yeah you got to just prove that you have 100 shares or so right y that's it you you know for friends and relatives you get 50 cents so you can get a dollar off oh thank you so much um what I'm perplexed about though Jason is that you know you and I been together many years in terms of doing business and doing the podcast this was your number one guest yes okay so ask a ask a question that's hard for him cuz this was your number one request of all the people you've ever wanted on the podcast and you and I done like almost 300 shows together this is the guy he's right in front of you what's on your mind he's going to have a beer with you possibly what do it you want to ask him well I mean we've covered a lot but I wanted to get into like the macroeconomic geopolitical stuff Keith um and by the way he's the one that actually Dawn the the name triple digit silver so that's right I really believe that triple digit silver is in the near future just my opinion but um Keith you noticed today just um you know and a granular look at the spot price of silver and gold today uh it kind of pulled back a little bit I don't think people understand with the FED funds rates how they can affect the uh precious metals market and I try to tell people well if the FED funds rates don't get cut then it's not really bullish for precious metals so you're seeing the FED funds rate at like 5.5% your own comes out and says you know he's he's doesn't anticipate cutting rates this year then he says he might cut rates and then the CPI numbers come in hot the PPI numbers come in hot retail sales are terrible uh credit revolving credit card debt is over a trillion dollars well here we we have the infamous US debt Clock the national debt 34.5 trillion dollar over here by way I think that's four trillion higher than when when you and I started yes 4 trillion trilon is accumulated and then all the Fiat dollars have % of them has been printed into existence over the last three or four years here's another number if you see my cursor here Revenue to GDP ratio I'm sorry total debt to GDP ratio 136% that number is massive inverted yield curve for years and years I mean Keith what do you think overall about the future of the world and specifically like North America as it relates to you know cost of living um you know Generations being usually each generation is proving their life and their Wellness uh you know one after the other and now it seems like it might not be the case I'd like to get your opinion on all that it's a mouthful well yeah you brought you brought up several points there I should have WR written them down as you speaking of them but um you know you're talking about headlines um you know markets are driven by headlines and that's it you know it's very simple the money will go where there's money to be made so you you know what pal does what the FED does you know sure it's got headline it'll change the market on a shortterm basis due to headlines uh because a bunch of hedge funds decides to trade against the news but you know it doesn't matter because gold is being bought up by central banks around the world and that's what's driving price um uh we've never seen the uh uh central banks around the world buy gold as they're doing today um it's this is a stor uh anything that's getting produced or buying uh simple as that and then uh that's dragging silver along you know Supply demand fundamentals of silver have not showed up in a headline yet um it will um you know gold starting to you know uh uh be talked about but still you know you go on to CNBC or CNN not that I watch those networks but you know do they ever talk about gold you know this you know gold has you know been reaching new highs you know fairly consistent recy for the last you know couple weeks and I don't see it really being mentioned anywhere um uh the the supply demand fundamental of silver I you know don't get mentioned anywhere um you know is it is it the the the press or the banks don't want it to be mentioned because they're paranoid that uh you know if if these headlines do actually get published that all of a sudden invest further Investments going to come into this sector and even even cause them more grief because I can tell you I'm sure that Financial system is is getting as stressed as a result of the move in in in metal prices over the last few weeks I can almost guarantee that um so it's not in their best interest to see what's happening out there so I think they're trying to purposely suppress this whole headline um um discussion uh you know they want us to focus on Nidia and apple and Microsoft and you know the the the top seven or whatever they call them and uh you know the retail investor i' I've heard you know through what I read that there's there's you know investors coming into this Market that are firsttime investors that are starting to buy these big high-tech companies which is you know pretty shocking uh you know you you you look at at 2000 and I remember very clearly because I I just left first Quantum uh in 2000 and um um you know I see the NASDAQ hitting you know 5,000 March of 2000 you know after you know a you know basically I don't know like a 200 300% run over the previous two three years NASDAQ 100 was it was crazy it was parabolic yeah yeah it it was nut what was happening right Y2K oh geez remember Y2K I remember Y2K I remember uh me buying uh uh ePay on a on a Friday at uh $9 and the following Friday being $99 I one of the most insane situations ever I was short Amazon I went up a $100 in a single day by the way buying Amazon then was still a winner yeah um but he Keith you're on to something because if you recall the nifty50 in the 70s and I know you and I were a lot younger then but the nifty50 dominated the world until they they cracked and when you own Coca-Cola in 73 it didn't get back to parody till 83 wow and you got now seven stocks basically sucking the oxygen out of the room it's a scary proposition well and how long did it take for the NASDAQ to get back to 5,000 10 years I think right yeah 15 years 2015 it hit so 13 years or whatever it was right took a long time for it to get back it was a it was a brutal hit it was a brutal hit yeah and then what happened in the mining sector during that period of time right so so and that's why I talk about money flows headlines so it's all to do with money flows something you know that people tend to ignore but um that all that money left the high-tech sector and it had to find a home so it went into real estate it went it went into mining stocks went into gold silver you know gold was $250 an ounce in 2002 silver was five bucks you know silver went up 10 times over the next 10 years silver or gold went up eight times in the next 10 years and uh you know the mining sector was just lit up for and we had one of the well probably the biggest bull market in my career you know over that period of time and now we've gone into a 10year bare Market um uh uh and and now we're just coming out of it um and and who knows when this Major Market going to crash but I think it will and it's going to unfortunately suck a lot of young people into it I've got young kids and uh you know then you know my kids say oh should I be buying this stock should I be buying that stock and I say you know I should I buy Bitcoin and I say no just don't don't chase this stuff just you know I give them some mining names and they own a coup they own first Majestic and they own you know some other you know mining socks I like and I I try to keep them away from you know those big Flyers because I'm paranoid that you know there is going to be this huge crash you know like we saw in 2000 that's going to last for the next couple years I think we're going to go into another 10-year run um and you know gold at you know 2,000 over the next 10 years if you see the same move does that mean eight times gold from current levels it seems like a big number to me but you know is that possible you know I am a triple just trip triple tiet silver guy I do think that Silver's going to go north of 100 bucks and you know you know gold at 3,000 5,000 silver at you know 100 150 an ounce so I think those are reasonable numbers yeah if you had 100 million extra laying around you'd put it in silver I'd buy first Majestic um for one oh nice yeah yeah I would definitely buy more first inest that would get the ratios back historical too Keith if you know that 30 to 50 to one sweet spot that's very D so he'd be long first domestic for the move in in the in the miners with is way better yeah yeah yeah cuz you go back 20 years you you know that was what I was asking you earlier Keith come on it took a while to get to that answer I that's exactly what I'm saying it's five bucks The Leverage has got to be huge yeah no it's it's between two to 300% you know it depends over the last 20 years let me let me give you my let me give you my thesis on you okay this is my thesis so I was long micro strategies for being Bitcoin because I thought okay I got a software company paying a dividend which is not really paying a dividend but you get my point is I got an operating company I own and they're long Bitcoin right so Bitcoin doesn't have a yield so I got this $500 million software company and I'm long Bitcoin so Bitcoin makes a move right so if you get long first Majestic you got an engine of mining producing silver and if silver makes a parabolic move you got the move in silver and you got the fact that he's the one of the few miners out there you get a lot of Leverage right so first Majestic could make a run here from say five bucks to 20 and you could be up what 4x your money yep uh yeah that's 4X your money even if silver only went silver went up 2x yeah am I right that is that the logic or am I flawed yeah for for you know historically for every dollar move and it works negatively as well so don't get me wrong it's not always positive but you know for every dollar we own some at 18 when it went down so we we we know okay well you know for every dollar move our stock would move2 to three thereabouts there you go yep well Keith I would be able to talk to you forever but I I have a meeting in downtown Vegas I got to go to and I'm a little bummed because this took forever to get done and we keep and I'm sure you don't want to sit here on the the for us but I asked you to two things hopefully we can see on the 24th but would you be willing to come back again in a couple months sure absolutely hopefully we'll have $30 store prices by then it would be great we can't do it but it would be great if we had them in studio yeah it would be great and and you'll have one of our new kilo bars in your hand that's awesome we appreciate you Keith uh really uh first Majestic CEO and founder been doing this for 22 years with first Majestic and before that with uh first Quantum Quant first Quantum and obviously uh bullish on Silver we're super hap happy to have you here and uh we will be directing obviously this is a recorded episode it is the uh what is today the 14th March yep we'll make sure that you guys know about uh his store and how to become a shareholder and how to buy silver uh Jason you got so much of this stuff we got silver everywhere right yeah yeah my wife said I can never sell my silver so we have possession of it yeah he has physical possession of we're big fans Keith we appreciate you being on the show the show and and good luck uh in the future we'll we we'll keep monitoring you we'll buy some shares and hopefully uh we'll be seeing triple D dig silver well it's a great opportunity Todd and then Jason um i' I've watched yourself historically it's uh nice to be on your podcast thank thank you so much Keith take care there's a reason for it
