11/24/2009 2:47:53 PM | Thom Calandra

Gold, uranium writer racks up followers at recent San Francisco metals show.

SAN FRANCISCO - Jim Dines is my absolute [expletive deleted] hero.

James Dines bills himself as the original gold bug.

JD is lean, looking a bit wan these days, yet still stylish as all heck. He is, for example, seen this past weekend with potent and lovely company at Bacar south of Market, the evening after his yearly San Francisco gig.

Like his slock of red hair up top, Jim Dines is as singular as ever in his metals choices: uranium -- Laramide Resources (TSX: T.LAM, Stock Forum); titanium (take your pick) and silver (Mexico mainly).

James Dines has been “calling the gold market” with stylistic prose since at least 1961. “Even I cannot remember how long,” he says. Since then, his writings have claimed tens of thousands of subscribers.

James Dines called on me in 1989, when I was writing a column for the San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle. Since then, I have been letting The Dines Letter distill (reading just ain’t the right word) me regularly.

At the natural resources show here in San Francisco, 35-year-olds, even 25-year-olds such as Avalon Rare Metals’ (TSX: T.AVL, Stock Forum) Manager of Investor Relations Virginia Morgan, were paying tribute to our newsletter writer and psycho-logist (hyphen intended, folks) from Belvedere, Calif. “I handed him a letter from our CEO. Mr. Dines was the first writer out there to look seriously at the rare earth metals,” says Ms. Morgan.

Jim developed a rare-earth metals index years ago. From Jim Dines’ page to your eye, right? The author/investor is all about word. He’s a sentiment scrubber: relentless in his pursuit of pun, power and mass psychology. One of Jim’s gems – little known – is a book of jokes. I have it where even he believes it belongs, in one of the bathrooms.

As it happens, Jim Dines is a published wildlife photographer. We learned that here in Northern California several years ago from a rare and earthy profile of the man by freelancer [and Ticker Trax spouse] Maura Thurman. The article was published in the Marin Independent Journal and had county residents marveling at yet another of the homegrown wonders living on the Tiburon peninsula here. (See one of Jim’s photos below.)



Lest we slight them, as anyone who attends the San Francisco show each November knows, there also are (my name for ‘em) The Dinettes. They are like Jim: impossibly lean, impossibly tall, by his side, these ladies, as he dishes on investment trends and occasionally, stock tickers.

“He was one of our top draws for many, many years,” says Sandy Lawrence, who ran the gold conference business that stages the San Francisco show until four years ago, when she sold it. Sandy now runs one of the most vibrant restaurants in the nation, Ubuntu, in Napa Wine Country.

Jim and his accompanying Dinettes – models from a Marin County agency he owns – still draw gawkers at this show. “His audience might be aging, as is Jim, but you know, he has more influence than any single mining writer I know,” says Bob Bishop, himself a well known and now retired gold stocks writer living in the San Francisco Bay Area.

At this weekend’s San Francisco show, one or two of the audience’s tributes to Mr. Dines were gently irreverent. But then, so is Mr. Dines, the only man I know who can say of a successful gold and copper tycoon living up the hill in home town Tiburon-Belvedere, “You know, after meeting him, I thought, ‘Now here is someone who can almost keep up with me in a conversation.’ I have a tremendous intellect, so I hope he takes that as a compliment.”

On the floor after Jim’s keynote speech, I ran into Ted T. Hommel, brother of silver writer and Grass Valley, Calif., mint owner Jason Hommel.

Ted (he legally changed his surname to Ted Terbolizard and ran for U.S. Congress) spun a stand-up tribute that he asked me to deliver to James D. So here I am, delivering it: “Hello ladies, and you few gentlemen in the back of the hall. My name is James Dines, and in 1883, I recommended this rock at 3 cents a pound. Just 3 lousy cents. Which was a lot in those days. Well, by 1937, that same rock was 44 cents a pound. Uranium. And I still like it today.”

Ted gives the routine with, he says, love. I think so, too. Who would not love a fellow who actually prints the names of subscribers who gush their thanks for bounty of wealth his metals (and life sciences) advice have produced for them over many years (and sometimes, just days).

I asked Jim what his own investment takeaway – in a single sentence – would be right now, on this day: Tuesday Nov. 24, 2009. He said, “Let them run and run, my boy. Let the winners run.”

Jim, you are my goddamn flag-nogging hero.

Show time: Our Stockhouse Trophy for best speaker at the two-day Hard Assets Show in San Francisco goes to U.S. Global’s Frank Holmes. Frank’s historical perspective and Asia view were spot-on and smooth.

· Best lowball idea given to me personally: hand-rolled chartist Ian McAvity’s suggestion to buy Central Fund’s Canada-only traded silver trust (UBT). “The TSE trades it in Canadian and U.S. dollars and the market maker is, well, inefficient to say the least. It sells for a discount to the physical silver in its (Regina, Canada) vault. Just put up a stink bid and let it sit.”
· Best perspective on overseas appetite for hard assets such as silver, gold and platinum: Robert Swenarchuck, whose Bravo Venture Group (TSX: V.BVG, Stock Forum) just revealed bonanza gold and silver grades at Homestake Ridge in British Columbia. Bob is just back from Munich, where German (and Italian and Swiss) investors flocked to see a group of Canada-listed miners whose securities also trade in Frankfurt. “The European crowds, especially the Germans, ask so many specific questions – they have sheets of paper they carry around. Regular investors. Now that is something I never have seen in North America,” he says. “They’re intense – no doubt because of those years (Weimar Republic) of such inflation, the currency was more valuable as fuel for their fireplaces.” Bob S. is preparing to separate Bravo’s Nevada assets, which appear considerable, into a separate company that will be released in part to existing shareholders of record as of December 15 or so.
· Speaking of crazy-ass inflation, show’s best gimmick (and yes, I have one): Eurasian Minerals’ (TSX: V.EMX, Stock Forum) Scott Close handed me 100 trillion Zimbabwe dollars – all in one legal tender note. I’ll cherish it until I find myself in a rainy and damp forest and I need to … wipe … my … windshield.
· Best bet for a one-week triple: In less than a week, Guyana’s Sandspring Resources will start trading in Canada with the ticker SSP. The security stems from ETK, a working mine I visited last month. The shares are set to open at 35 cents Canadian. Most observers at the show say the new stock – if you can purchase it at that price (not likely) – is among the 10 cheapest gold stocks by per-ounce price in the ground.