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by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Tuesday was a bleak 48-119-143 as the TSX Venture Exchange fell 11 points to 537. Dr. Stewart Blusson's Archon Minerals Ltd. (ACS), up nine cents to 34 cents on 5,000 shares when it last traded at the end of January, is cheering on Australia-based Burgundy Diamond Mines Ltd., its latest partner at Lac de Gras.

Dr. Blusson has seen many a partner come and go since he and Chuck Fipke discovered diamonds at Lac de Gras 34 years ago. First was Mr. Fipke's Dia Met Minerals Ltd., which brought in BHP Billiton Diamonds Inc. early on. BHP bought out Dia Met in 2000, the result of a messy divorce between Mr. Fipke and his then wife, Marlene Fipke. BHP then decided to move on from diamonds, and so it sold Ekati -- and the surrounding Buffer claims in which Archon had a key interest -- to Bob Gannicott's Harry Winston Diamonds Inc. in 2012.

Harry Winston then became Dominion Diamond Corp. -- yes, this is starting to read like the begats in the Bible -- and then Dennis Washington took Dominion private in 2017. Dominion then went bankrupt in 2020, and the creditors formed Arctic Canada Diamonds Inc. in 2021 to carry on mining Ekati. Enter Burgundy, as of last summer. Meanwhile, Archon Minerals traded its interest in the Buffer claims in 2017 for a 2.3-per-cent royalty on diamond production from Buffer, rather than be on the hook for exploration and development expenses.

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