The First Assay
Wednesday Drill Digest
TSX · TSX-V · CSE · NYSE-A · Nasdaq · July 15, 2026 · 5 companies · 28 qualifying holes · 3 jurisdictions
A thin tape by hole count but heavy at the top: five names carried the day, and two of them — American Eagle at NAK and Founders at Antino — account for most of the metal. The day's shape is porphyry scale versus saprolite grade: American Eagle's 801 m of 0.49% CuEq from surface is the biggest single envelope this screen has logged in weeks, while Founders' best numbers come from 30 m auger holes in weathered rock that have never been tested in bedrock. Southern Cross Gold's Redcastle headline (26.2 g/t Au) is real but only 0.14 m wide — it fails the GT screen outright, a reminder that grade without width buys nothing.
⚑ Hole of the Day
◉ Shallow · From 33mExtension · Step-outCanada · StablePorphyry-Cu
American Eagle Gold AETSX-V · C$234M
NAK (South Zone), Canada (BC)
NAK26-83: 801m of 0.49% CuEq* from 33m
incl. 154m of 1.21% CuEq from 83m, and 280m of 0.96% CuEq from 33m
| GT | AuEq·m | GT/MCap | Deposit |
| 392.5 %·mExceptional | 522.9 Cu basis | 1.68× | Porphyry-Cu |
Hole 83 cut copper-gold mineralisation continuously from 33 m to 834 m — 801 m of 0.49% CuEq, with a 154 m core at 1.21% CuEq. Grade of that tenor over that width starting at surface is the whole argument for NAK: it implies a low strip ratio and a bulk-tonnage pit rather than a selective underground. At 1.68× GT/MCap on a C$234M cap, this is the best Cu result the screen has seen in 30 days, and comfortably ahead of Sterling Metals' 146 AuEq·m from yesterday. Two caveats worth holding: true width is not stated, and the CuEq assumes 80% recoveries for all four metals with no metallurgy to support it — at US$4.50/lb Cu the Au credit is doing real work in that number. This is one hole of roughly 80 planned on a fully funded 50,000 m program with C$50M in cash and South32/Teck on the register, so news flow is the thing to watch, not this intercept alone.
* Drilled widths — true width not determined pending geological modelling.
GT/MCap Spotlight — Top 5
Au and Cu metrics are on different price bases — not directly comparable across metals.
MASS BM21-01 Cu — 4.46×
AE NAK26-83 Cu◉★ HOTD — 1.68×
GGO WC-26-238 Au ✓ — 0.32×
FDR MGAD061 Au◉ — 0.28×
FDR MGAD062 Au◉ — 0.25×
Masivo's 4.46× tops the sheet but should not be read as the day's best value: it is a single CuEq intercept against an approximate C$10M micro-cap, reported in feet, with no from-depth and a hole ID (BM21-01) that suggests legacy core rather than 2026 drilling. The best clean, verifiable ratio is American Eagle at 1.68× — five times the next Au name, Galleon at 0.32×.
◉ From depth ≤200m (shallow) · ⚠ High jurisdiction risk · ~ Moderate jurisdiction risk · ✓ True width stated · ★ HOTD
Today's Qualifying Intercepts — Top 10 of 28
| Rating | Company | Metal | Hole | m | Grade / COG | GT | AuEq·m | GT/MCap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Great | Founders MetalsFDR | AuOrogenic | MGAD061* | 30.0 ◉ | 4.52 g/t / 0.10 g/t | 135.6 | 135.6 | 0.28 |
| Great | Founders MetalsFDR | AuOrogenic | MGAD062* | 23.0 ◉ | 5.31 g/t / 0.10 g/t | 122.1 | 122.1 | 0.25 |
| Great | Founders MetalsFDR | AuOrogenic | MGAD060* | 30.0 ◉ | 3.69 g/t / 0.10 g/t | 110.7 | 110.7 | 0.23 |
| Great | Revival GoldRVG | AuCarlin | RM26-204 ✓ | 30.5 ◉ | 1.65 g/t / 0.17 g/t | 50.3 | 50.3 | 0.21 |
| Good | Galleon GoldGGO | AuOrogenic | WC-26-238 ✓ | 23.25 | 2.03 g/t / n/s | 47.2 | 47.2 | 0.32 |
| Good | Galleon GoldGGO | AuOrogenic | WC-26-240 ✓ | 12.0 | 2.61 g/t / n/s | 31.3 | 31.3 | 0.21 |
| Good | Revival GoldRVG | AuCarlin | RM26-183 ✓ | 30.5 ◉ | 0.92 g/t / 0.17 g/t | 28.1 | 28.1 | 0.12 |
| Exceptional★ | American EagleAE | CuPorphyry-Cu | NAK26-83* | 801 ◉ | 0.49 % CuEq / n/s | 392.5 | 522.9 | 1.68 (Cu) |
| Exceptional | American EagleAE | CuPorphyry-Cu | NAK26-83 (2nd)* | 154 ◉ | 1.21 % CuEq / n/s | 186.3 | 248.2 | 0.80 (Cu) |
| Great | Masivo SilverMASS | CuUnknown | BM21-01* | 13.72 | 3.25 % CuEq / n/s | 44.6 | 59.4 | 4.46 (Cu) |
↗ View all 28 intercepts in Google Sheets
+18 not shown: FDR MGAD064 (Great, 0.16×), FDR ANE009 (Great, 0.12×), FDR MGAD074 (Great, 0.12×), FDR MGAD063 (Good, 0.10×), FDR AN002 (Good, 0.06×), RVG RM26-194 (Good, 0.09×), +12 more Good
Near-Miss
| Near-miss | Founders MetalsFDR | Au | MGAD068* | 11.0 | 0.83 g/t | 9.13 | 9.13 | 0.02 |
| Near-miss | Revival GoldRVG | Au | RM26-184 ✓ | 10.7 | 0.83 g/t | 8.9 | 8.9 | 0.04 |
| Near-miss | Galleon GoldGGO | Au | WC-26-236 ✓ | 11.3 | 0.59 g/t | 6.7 | 6.7 | 0.05 |
9 near-misses today (6 more from Founders' Antino NE/North holes, 1 from Revival). Galleon's WC-26-236 was drilled deliberately off the interpreted plunge to vector subsequent holes — a low number by design, not a miss.
✓ True width stated in PR · * Drilled width — TW not determined · ◉ From ≤200m (shallow)
⚠ High jurisdiction risk · ~ Moderate jurisdiction risk · n/s = COG not stated
GT thresholds — Au: Good >10, Great >50, Exceptional >200 g/t·m · Cu: Good >20, Great >40, Exceptional >150 %·m · WO₃: Good >1, Great >5, Exceptional >20 %·m (through-cycle APT basis)
AuEq: Au $3,200/oz · Ag $33/oz · Cu $13,700/t · APT $3,300/mtu · NdPr $70/kg · GT/MCap uses C$ mkt cap at July 15, 2026
Founders' MGAD holes are 30 m deep augers in saprolite, not diamond drilling — grade is real but bedrock is untested. Full grade-width scatter is in the Google Sheet.
⚠ High jurisdiction risk · ~ Moderate jurisdiction risk · n/s = COG not stated
GT thresholds — Au: Good >10, Great >50, Exceptional >200 g/t·m · Cu: Good >20, Great >40, Exceptional >150 %·m · WO₃: Good >1, Great >5, Exceptional >20 %·m (through-cycle APT basis)
AuEq: Au $3,200/oz · Ag $33/oz · Cu $13,700/t · APT $3,300/mtu · NdPr $70/kg · GT/MCap uses C$ mkt cap at July 15, 2026
Founders' MGAD holes are 30 m deep augers in saprolite, not diamond drilling — grade is real but bedrock is untested. Full grade-width scatter is in the Google Sheet.
Not Screened
Alpha Exploration (ALEX · TSX-V · C$59M) — Aburna Gold Project, Eritrea ⚠. Best cited intercept: 18 m of 15.33 g/t Au (ABD012). Drilling-commenced release — every intercept listed was previously reported between 2022 and Feb 2026, so there is no new assay data to screen. Fresh results are promised in batches over coming months.
Southern Cross Gold (SXGC · TSX/ASX · C$2.28B) — Redcastle (Laura), Australia. Best intercept: 0.14 m of 26.2 g/t Au. This one was screened and failed: peak GT is 3.67 g/t·m, below even the 5.0 near-miss floor. Eight high-grade veins over 250 m of vertical extent in a Costerfield-style system is geologically meaningful, but sub-metre widths cannot clear a grade-thickness screen. Worth watching on narrative, not on GT.
Southern Cross Gold (SXGC · TSX/ASX · C$2.28B) — Redcastle (Laura), Australia. Best intercept: 0.14 m of 26.2 g/t Au. This one was screened and failed: peak GT is 3.67 g/t·m, below even the 5.0 near-miss floor. Eight high-grade veins over 250 m of vertical extent in a Costerfield-style system is geologically meaningful, but sub-metre widths cannot clear a grade-thickness screen. Worth watching on narrative, not on GT.
THE FIRST ASSAY
thefirstassay.com · Au $3,200/oz · Ag $33/oz · Cu $13,700/t · APT $3,300/mtu · Not investment advice.
Archived: Google Sheets · Raw CSV also saved to Drive · Enumeration was search-based this run (no browser connected) — coverage may be incomplete