Video Interview with Shawn Khunkhun, CEO of Dolly Varden Silver Corp

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With the summer exploration season looming, Dolly Varden Silver Corp. (TSXV: DV) (OTC:DOLLF) announced earlier in the month it has initiated field activities on the company’s namesake silver project located near tidewater in northwest British Columbia.

Dolly Varden Silver finds itself in the rare position of being a pure-play silver explorer, in a space where most silver production comes from lead-zinc deposits or is a by-product of gold mining.

There was a time when China had an appetite for silver, and the West hungered for Chinese goods.

In a world dominated by paper currencies, we sometimes forget the role of gold and silver in fostering international trade and creating the basis of the monetary system as we know it today.

Many scholars consider the silver trade to mark the beginning of the global economy, with one historian noting that silver “went round the world and made the world go round.”

The precious metal has made an indelible mark on Chinese history, helping both to build an empire and to destroy it.

Dolly Varden’s goal is to try and extend Torbrit through some step-out drill holes, and to get into the high-grade, 500g to 1kg material. There are early indications of other Torbrit “look-alikes” along a 4.5-km trend. Through drilling, Dolly Varden wants to prove up another Torbrit and drastically increase the size of the resource which in all categories is about 44Moz at an average grade of 300 g/t. A key part of the exploration thesis is the fact that the rocks hosting the mineralization on the property are the same age as some of the other large deposits found in the Golden Triangle including Eskay Creek.

When looking for an investment, the approach I take involves looking at the global, big picture conditions. I study trends, read the news, basically watch and listen to what’s going on in the world. Then I study the different sectors to select the one (or ones) that I think is going to match up well with the overriding, long-term theme. This is top-down investing.

The second part of my search for the dominant investment is a bottom-up approach. This is where I find individual companies, in the specific sector I have chosen to invest in.

Several factors influence gold prices (mainly the US dollar, gold ETF inflows/ outflows, inflation rate, bond yields, safe haven demand, physical gold demand, gold supply) but none is more reliable than real interest rates.

The demand for gold moves inversely to interest rates — the higher the rate of interest, the lower the demand for gold, the lower the rate of interest the higher the demand for gold.

“Native silver” found in the Earth’s crust on its own, is relatively rare. More commonly, it is mined alongside gold, or as a by-product of zinc-lead ore. There are currently only 75 “pure play” silver companies, most of whom have projects in Chile, Argentina, Mexico and Peru.

The rarity of silver and gold becomes apparent when we consider how little of both have been mined throughout history – just 190,000 tonnes of gold and 1.6 million tonnes of silver. Or in ounce terms, 6.1 billion oz of gold and 51.3 billion oz of silver. All the gold ever mined in the world could fit into a cube 21.6 meters on each side, and all the above-ground silver could fit into a 55m cube.