Magma Silver (MGMA.V): Old Core, New Blood, Big Gold Upside in Peru’s Silver Heartland

This is a guest post of a recent article by Chris Parry over at equity.guru. Epstein Research [ER] has no prior or existing relationship with Magma Silver or its predecessor company. Peter Epstein of [ER] remains bullish on gold & silver.

With the Au/Ag ratio at 101:1 — a level it’s at (or above) less than 2% of the time in the past 50 years — we could see a nice rally in Ag relative to Au. If the tightening in the ratio comes with the gold price rising, Ag could surpass $40/oz. in a heartbeat. The following is Chris Parry’s article on Magma Silver.

YOU CAN FEEL IT, CAN’T YOU?

The big money is piling into gold like it’s a meme stock. Central banks, billionaires, sovereign wealth funds—it’s a full-fledged love affair, and prices have been running because Putin and tariffs and Bitcoin’s all over the place, and cash is subject to currency changes and inflation and…

But while gold hogs the mainstream spotlight, silver sits in the corner, sipping its drink, waiting for its turn on the dance floor.

That turn might be coming fast.

Silver prices have traditionally been coupled with gold prices, because you’ll often find one near the other, so when gold went on a run historically, so did silver.

But silver dipped out on its dance partner in 2018 and has yet to make back lost ground.

You should totally have a gold strategy, no question. As the Nutella folks liked to say when they were hawking chocolate spread as a health food when we were kids, that product was “an important part of a complete nutritious breakfast,” and gold hits similarly.

But there’s also a case to be made for silver.

The industrial demand for silver is strong and growing: Silver is needed for solar, electric vehicles, and clean tech, but there was a record supply deficit globally in 2024, and that’s not turned around yet.

If silver is likely to break out, and there are plenty of folks who think that’s on the cards, you’ll want leverage. Not bullion. Not ETFs. Not dividends. Juniors.

Thankfully (for you), most of the silver exploration juniors are on life support, so the deals, they are a-boomin’.

Some won’t catch any waves because they’re too under-funded, under-explored, and under-connected. Others are tightly wound and waiting for an excuse to snap back to action, especially if they have a little gold exposure into the bargain.

But occasionally, you’ll find a silver project that’s actually an undercover gold project, where whichever way the winds of economic change blow, you’re still in the sweet spot.

This week, we’re spotlighting Magma Silver Corp. (TSXV: MGMA)—a freshly recapitalized, newly focused explorer sitting on a forgotten Peruvian silver project that once drew majors like Newmont and AngloGold like nerds to a Magic: The Gathering tournament.

(If that seems like an odd reference, the ‘Magma Sliver’ is a Magic The Gathering collectible card that can be worth a bit of cash, so excuse my blatant search engine optimization side quest and WELCOME NERDS!)

Collectible card game SEO notwithstanding, Magma just raised cash, cleaned out the boardroom and C-suite, tossed a new jacket on, and they’re getting ready to straight up party.

Why is that?

Because they have gold AND silver, in a project that, at $1,200 an ounce gold, the big boys sniffed and walked away from, but at $3,000 an ounce gold, it’s a whole new ballgame.

The Setup: Old Bones, New Playbook

Magma Silver (formerly African Energy Metals) has transformed into a focused silver-gold exploration company, targeting a legacy project called Niñobamba in the Ayacucho region of Peru.

This isn’t your average grassroots drill and hope gamble. The Niñobamba project has already seen $14.5M+ in historical drilling, trenching, and sampling, with a 3D Leapfrog model built over a decade ago.

Back some years, Newmont Corporation (NEM.NYSE) was into this space enough that they did an internal Pre-Feasibility Study for themselves, spent around $7M, established for themselves that there was likely 550k ounces of gold and 16M ounces of silver present (note, those are historic non-compliant numbers so don’t go missing your rent payment on them just yet), and when the decision came to either double down on drilling to establish more or go do other things,. Newmont did other things.

WHY?

$1,200 an ounce gold, that’s why.

Also, Newmont didn’t have access to the Niñobamba zone, which was on another patch of land belonging to AngloGold Ashanti (AU.NYSE). Magma has brought them together for the first time, and by expanding the map, Magma is looking to make this area interesting to the big boys again.

While the project had good bones back in the day, Newmont couldn’t focus on every project it landed a finger on, especially at a time when gold and silver prices were meh. They have bigger fish to fry, and sometimes the majors will let a good project go because it’s just a little outside their sweet spot, or the time isn’t right, or something bigger comes along. Good mineral explorers don’t always dig virgin ground – the smartest guys dig through the major players’ trash and save themselves a ton in drilling costs.

When Newmont walked and everyone got busy with other things, the scene was set for Magma’s executive team to pounce.

For a company of the size of MGMA, this project could be a monster, so they’re back, digging in to finish what the big boys started.

With a tight cap table, a new round of funding, and 43-101 compliant work planned for late-2025, not to mention a crew that understands the value of telling their story, this is a junior play that will be telling its story loudly.

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE:

The Project (Niñobamba)

8 km mineralized trend, with high- and low-sulfidation zones
3 key areas: Niñobamba Main, Jorimina, and Randypata
Historical trenching includes:
- 56m @ 1.03 g/t Au + 98.9 g/t Ag (TR-01)
- 72.3m @ 1.19 g/t Au (JM1 drillhole)
Newmont internal estimates pointed to 20–30m oz silver potential (non-compliant)

REALLY THOUGH?

Yes—Magma Silver’s earlier drill and trench results at Niñobamba are decent, and in some cases quite promising, especially for a junior explorer in the early/mid exploration stage.

Let’s break it down in context:

DRILLING & TRENCHING HIGHLIGHTS (Magma + Historic)

The ‘okay that’s alright’ stuff, including some decent gold:

JM1 Drillhole:
- 72.3m @ 1.19 g/t Au
- 24.6m @ 1.07 g/t Au
Trench TR-01:
- 56m @ 1.03 g/t Au + 98.9 g/t Ag
Trench TR-04:
- 21m @ 1.32 g/t Au + 102 g/t Ag (Open-ended)

And then there’s the stuff that got the big boys giggly:

AngloGold (2001):
- 130m @ 87 g/t Ag
- 96m @ 54 g/t Ag
Bear Creek (2003):
- 20m @ 70.6 g/t Ag,
- 26m @ 79.6 g/t Ag,
- 14m @ 42.9 g/t Ag

THE STRUCTURE

~43.5M fully diluted shares
Recent raise: $900K @ $0.10
Warrants at $0.20; stock trades in the low-teens
Market cap under $5 million

WHAT COULD MOVE THE STOCK?

Q3–Q4 2025 drilling at Jorimina and Main Zone – this is the easy answer, and the money already in the bank will make that drilling – and some marketing – possible.
Permitting milestones on schedule – a little further out, but let’s be clear, Peru wants mining and will be happy to play ball if Magma does things right.
Re-release of Newmont data with 43-101 upgrades – this is the big one, for mine. Newmont showed good numbers, but had better numbers elsewhere, so they left this project to dangle. But with today’s gold prices and a silver sentiment shift already brewing, this is a good time – maybe the best time – to get things rolling once more.

RISKS (Let’s Be Honest)

There’s no current resource estimate, which is less a risk and more of an item on the to-do list that hasn’t been ticked yet. The company says they have this on their radar near term.
Permitting is still underway – another to-do list more than anything, but not a certainty until the paperwork is in the company’s desk drawer.
Needs further financing post-drill – like any junior, there’ll be a need to raise more cash at some point, but this crew does know how to promote, and if they can effectively drive share value, the money will come.
Early-stage, high-risk, high-torque – this will not be for everyone. If it lights up, there’ll be a lot of people patting themselves on the back for getting it right, but early-stage explorer juniors – even those being effectively marketed – can have ups and downs on their way to the end game. Head on a swivel, high risk means high reward, but IT ALSO MEANS HIGH RISK, so have your ‘buy in/sell off’ points in mind when you go in.

THE BOTTOM LINE

MGMA.V isn’t going to be for the timid. It’s not a safe haven or a dividend machine. It’s the kind of early-stage junior that catches a bid when silver breaks and the majors start looking for ounces in overlooked basins and good jurisdictions, and, if everything goes to plan, the potential returns can be significant. This is not an RRSP stock, but it is an undercover gold play dressed up, for all intents and purposes, as a silver project.

There’s enough gold in them thar hills that, it would appear, on today’s commodity prices, you could play this for one metal or the other – or both.

If you’re positioning for a silver run, you don’t want to be holding 15 large caps and getting 4% dividends. You want a few calculated bets with big room to rerate, driven by folks who aren’t shy about what they’ve got and have a track record of driving shareholder returns.

Magma Silver fits the profile.

Early. Ignored. Structurally cheap. But sitting on historic data, proven mineralization, and the kind of district-scale asset that used to get bought, not buried.

For mine, hey, don’t buy a share of it just yet. There’s no crazy rush. It’s only just turned the lights back on after a long spell retooling.

But keep your eye on Magma because, when things do move on this low volume whisper play, they may move faster than you think.

— Chris Parry

FULL DISCLOSURE: Not a client, but we’ve talked, and that may change. Consider me conflicted if you want, but ‘don’t buy it just yet’ is hardly superhype promo material. We talklin’ here.