We were incorporated in the State of Idaho in August 1968 under the name Silver
Crystal Mines, Inc., to engage in the business of exploring for precious metal
deposits and advancing them toward production. We ceased exploration activities
during the 1990s and became virtually inactive. In December 2003, a group of
investors purchased 80-percent of the issued and outstanding common stock from
the then-controlling management team. In January 2004, we affected a one-for-four
reverse split of our issued and outstanding shares of common stock and increased
the number of our authorized shares of common stock to 100,000,000 with a par
value of $0.001.
In February 2004, our name was changed to Timberline Resources Corporation.
Since the reorganization, we have been in an exploration stage evaluating, acquiring,
and exploring mineral prospects with potential for economic deposits of precious
and base metals. A prospect is defined as a mining property, the value of which
has not been determined by exploration. In August 2008, we reincorporated into
the State of Delaware pursuant to a merger agreement approved by our shareholders.
In March 2006, we acquired Timberline Drilling, Inc. (“TDI”), formerly
known as Kettle Drilling, as a wholly owned subsidiary. TDI was formed in 1996
and provides mineral core drilling services to the mining and mineral exploration
industries primarily in the western United States. In September 2011, we announced
that we had entered into a non-binding letter of intent to sell TDI to a private
company formed by a group of investors, including certain members of the senior
management team of TDI. In November 2011, the sale of TDI was completed for
a total value of approximately $15 million.
In July 2007, we closed our purchase of the Butte Highlands Gold Project. In
October 2008, we announced that we had agreed to form a 50/50 joint venture
at the Butte Highlands project. In July 2009, we finalized the joint venture
agreement with Highland Mining, LLC (“Highland”) to create Butte
Highlands JV, LLC (“BHJV”). Under terms of the joint venture agreement,
development began in the summer of 2009, with Highland funding all mine development
costs through development. Both Timberline’s and Highland’s 50-percent
share of costs were to be paid out of net proceeds from future mine production.
On January 29, 2016, we executed a Member Interest Purchase Agreement (the “Purchase
Agreement”) with New Jersey Mining Company pursuant to which we sold all
of our 50% interest in BHJV.
In June 2010, we closed our acquisition of Staccato Gold Resources Ltd., a
Canadian-based resource company (“Staccato Gold”) that was in the
business of acquiring, exploring, and developing mineral properties with a focus
on gold exploration in the dominant gold producing trends in Nevada. As a result
of this acquisition, we obtained Staccato’s flagship gold exploration
project (“Lookout Mountain”), and several other projects at various
stages of exploration in the Battle Mountain/Eureka gold trend in north-central
Nevada, along with Staccato Gold’s wholly owned U.S. subsidiary, BH Minerals
USA, Inc. (“BH Minerals”).
We are a mineral exploration business and, if and when we establish mineral
reserves, a development company. Mineral exploration is essentially a research
activity that does not produce a product. Successful exploration often results
in increased project value that can be realized through the optioning or selling
of the claimed site to larger companies. We acquire properties which we believe
have potential to host economic concentrations of minerals, particularly gold
and silver. These acquisitions have and may take the form of unpatented mining
claims on federal land, or leasing claims or private property owned by others.
An unpatented mining claim is an interest that can be acquired to the mineral
rights on open lands of the federally owned public domain. Claims are staked
in accordance with the Mining Law of 1872, recorded with the federal government
pursuant to laws and regulations established by the Bureau of Land Management
(the Federal agency that administers America’s public lands), and grant
the holder of the claim a possessory interest in the mineral rights, subject
to the paramount title of the United States.
We will perform basic geological work to identify specific drill targets on
the properties, and then collect subsurface samples by drilling to confirm the
presence of mineralization (the presence of economic minerals in a specific
area or geological formation). We may enter into joint venture agreements with
other companies to fund further exploration and/or development work. It is our
plan to focus on assembling a high quality group of gold and silver exploration
prospects using the experience and contacts of the management group. By such
prospects, we mean properties that may have been previously identified by third
parties, including prior owners such as exploration companies, as mineral prospects
with potential for economic mineralization. Often these properties have been
sampled, mapped and sometimes drilled, usually with indefinite results. Accordingly,
such acquired projects will either have some prior exploration history or will
have strong similarity to a recognized geologic ore deposit model. We will place
geographic emphasis on the western United States and Nevada in particular.
The focus of our activity has been to acquire properties that we believe to
be undervalued; including those that we believe to hold previously unrecognized
mineral potential. Properties have been acquired through the location of unpatented
mining claims (which allow the claimholder the right to mine the minerals without
holding title to the property), or by negotiating lease/option agreements. Our
President and CEO, Steven Osterberg, and our CFO, Randal Hardy, as well as our
Directors, have experience in evaluating, staking and filing unpatented mining
claims, and in negotiating and preparing mineral lease agreements in connection
with those mining claims.