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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Tuesday was a disappointing 40-54-157. The TSX Venture Exchange fell five points to 589 while polished diamond prices slipped slightly. Robert Gannicott's Dominion Diamond Corp. (DDC) fell 22 cents to $16.06 on 975,000 shares. Dominion has been trading actively for some time, moving lower for the past few months for the most part. It falls along with gold stocks, but when gold rises, investors appear to remember Dominion is a diamond miner. Jay Chmelauskas's Western Lithium USA Corp. (WLC) gained two cents to 57 cents on 997,000 shares. Western recently closed a $5-million (U.S.) placement of shares priced at 54.3 U.S. cents. The company, which is seeking lithium in Nevada and Argentina, plans to merge with John Kanellitsas's Lithium Americas Corp. (LAC: $0.35), which is involved with advanced lithium projects in Argentina.

David Hodge and Robert Bick's Prima Diamond Corp. (PMD: $0.01) has appointed Dusan Berka to its board. Mr. Hodge, Prima's president, offered the usual Howe Street welcome, saying Mr. Berka will help develop Prima's assets and assist in advancing the company. It will be a tall order: Prima's main assets are the Munn Lake and Godspeed Lake diamond prospects in the Northwest Territories and the Orion gem play in Northern Quebec. They each need a lot of work, and work -- at least the meaningful kind -- does not come cheaply in remote parts of Canada's North. Mr. Berka claims experience in marketing, sales, business administration, public relations and financing. Of those, the latter is Prima's most pressing need. The company had a $900,000 working capital deficiency on April 30 and Mr. Hodge's attempt to sell 15 million shares at five cents and 25 million flow-through shares at seven cents has apparently flopped. Prima's financial plight is discouraging since Mr. Hodge has been a capable financier over the years -- just ask him -- and Mr. Bick, a Prima director, loves to talk of his days as CEO of Evolving Gold Corp (EVG: $0.085), which, he is quick to remind investors, had a market value of over $100-million when he left in 2010. (That is to say it has a much smaller value today -- just $250,000 in early July.) Unfortunately, in the three years since Mr. Bick has been directing Prima, it looks much more like the current Evolving than it resembles Mr. Bick's more successful version. Mr. Hodge and his crew have been silent about their diamond plays this year, which suggests not much -- if anything -- is taking place on any of the prospects. The Munn Lake and Godspeed Lake plays are near Gahcho Kue, which should be in production within two years, and close to Kennady North, which hosts another high-grade diamond deposit that appears economic. Naturally, previous explorers spent millions perusing what is now Prima's ground and found little of interest. Still, in Prima's words, its "enviable inventory of diamond properties" lie in the "heart of diamond country." Unfortunately, unless Mr. Hodge and Mr. Berka can raise a few million dollars, Prima's gem hunts will not have much of a heartbeat.

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