I can believe that the locals have the same opinion of the Qs as everyone else. That may cause a problem for the claims that GHDC owns 29% of. But that doesn't mean that GHDC's and SFMI's wholly owned claims are worthless. Some of those veins can be traced for miles on the surface extending well beyond the partially owned claims, and there are certainly veins that weren't discovered back in the 1800s when they pretty much just mined the obvious deposits. As for the Sinker not being worth anything? That's really a load of crap. Does Anton really think that the veins go straight down? When RS was there, SFMI added a lot of claims. I'm sure many of these claims are above extensions of the veins on the other claims that go sideways. And as for veins visible in the Sinker, unless these veins are directly under the 29% claims, it is likely that SFMI owns claims on the property directly above that extend down to the Sinker. If you've seen a claim map of WEM, SFMI and GHDC have staked out much of the mountain. It is true that the other owners of the 29% claims have "lateral rights" to the veins on their properties, meaning that they can follow and mine them, but only for a limited distance beyond their claim. SFMI has similar rights to follow veins from their 100% claims onto the 29% properties for a certain distance. But I'm sure that SFMI can do quite well sticking to their 100% properties.

And Anton also seems to be forgetting one very important thing. SFMI may have problems working on their 29% properties, but they do own 29%. So how does Anton propose to mine on those properties w/o PQ's cooperation? Though I'm sure PQ would be content to sit back and collect 29% of whatever they dig out. Or maybe PQ will be out of the way soon, and the other claim owners will be willing to deal with the new guys. Although if I were SFMI, I would first mine the 100% claims rather than partially owned ones.