TERRACE, British Columbia – Events are imminent on three fronts you might think are a priori distanced from each other: rare earth elements, H1N1 and silver.

H1N1, the A-type influenza virus that looms large across the top half of our planet, already has scientists and industrial researchers testing experimental disinfectants, triage diagnostic tools for airports and hospitals and silver-embedded sterilizers for doorknobs, water fountains, bandages and viral-prone surfaces.

Silver is fast becoming a select ingredient for hospital surfaces, plasters, clothing and a wide array of medical devices.

Strangely named earth elements, as Avalon Rare Metals’ Don Bubar (TSX: T.AVL) told me this morning from Toronto, where the CEO is on the cusp of a net $16 million ‘bought’ financing, “are officially a Bay Street mania.”

So: silver, pandemic, rare earth elements.

I am here in the north country looking at a specialty metals miner on behalf of our subscription service Ticker Trax™. On a brief break from this molybdenum mine tour, I began this article.

Thanks to the New York Times, rare minerals mania is spreading. More than 90% of the earth’s rarest elements, such as dysprosium and terbium and lithium, have their origins in China mines. China is restricting supplies in major supply centers such as the city of Baotou, which I have seen. For that, I have Ivanhoe Mines’ (TSX: T.IVN) Robert M. Friedland to thank.

Back in moly country way up here in Canada, about a quarter of the way through my article, I receive an electronic missive from a longtime Ticker Trax™ and The Calandra Report™ subscriber. (Yes, even the Best Western in Terrace has a W in every room. Wireless.).

Chris Powell is one of my earliest supporters.

On the subject of metals investing, Chris, an equal founder of Bill Murphy’s Gold Anti Trust Action Committee, is someone who, as a newspaper managing editor and a bullion markets researcher, has tiptoed me through a minefield of geological lingo and grammatical goofs. (‘So, wait, now, that’s a shaft and over there, asluice, and that’s no schist?’)

Mr. Powell and I, and some of our subscribing band of wealth-oriented investors, have tracked the influenza and drug discovery story now for several years. We share in common a willingness to devour thick books and medical reports on the subject of influenza (and select other subjects, such as gold manipulation and why Bill Murphy deserves a Purple GATA Heart, for instance).

Thanks to a four-year research project on my part, Chris and our high-profile band of subs also share an intensely profitable interest in an antiviral company. Enough to fund part of a daughter’s college education. Or a new Audi TT. Or a big fat donation to Alzheimer’s research.

This is Mr. Powell’s missive (forgive me my stylistic frontage road, as I am rereading K.V.’s Pall Mall-stained “Slaughterhouse Five”). 

The story, datelined Paris and originally in French, which our two children speak fluently, spoke for itself. Swine flu spreads four times faster than other viruses. Almost 41% of H1N1-linked deaths are young adults in good health.

Mr. Powell in Connecticut is a believer in silver, as is his colleague Mr. Murphy in Dallas. So am I. So is Jason Hommel, who just took over an adorable coin shop on Granite Drive in Rocklin, California.

We just have different ways of showing our silver fidelity. Mr. Murphy is a believer, if I am not mistaken, in Steve Altmann’s ECU Silver Mining (TSX: T.ECU). Ditto Mr. Murphy.

Mr. Hommel is heads over heels in love with real silver: coins, bars, rounds. Our Jason Hommel loves his silver so much, he is almost finished building a $1 million silver mint in Grass Valley, California. I’ve seen it.

That’s scary. Because, as an owner of Endeavour Silver, I already have seen the remarkable advancement that Bradford Cooke and his team have made at their flagship and producing silver mine in Guanajuato, Mexico. I have been there.

Mr. Bubar at Avalon Rare Metals hopes one day to have a producing mine, too. He tells me he has been at this rare elements thing since 1996 or so.

“Until this year, I could not get a banker to listen to our story,” the 54-year-old CEO and geologist says. Now, Avalon owns the Thor Lake project near Yellowknife up there in Canada’s North West Territories. The company enlisted CIBC World Markets in its recent and successful financing.

I don’t own Avalon. But a lot of people now do, thanks to my colleague Jim Dines, the newsletter writer who lives in our town of Belvedere-Tiburon in California and with whom I break bread twice or so a year at the Buckeye Roadhouse just down the freeway a mile or two.

“You know,” Don Bubar says, dropping in the L word, “we have a good lithium asset buried in our portfolio, too.” I ask him, aside from the New York Times this week and the 1,000 or so companies hopping on the rare earth bandwagon, what sparked this rare earth pandemic?

“Mr. Dines, God bless him, seems to have started this,” Mr. Bubar says about Mr. Dines, who first visited me when I was a newspaper reporter in San Francisco in 1989 or so. (But then, shameless name-upper-dropper that I am, so did Bob Bishop, who is now safely retired from the world of metals newsletters.)

“Plus,” says Don Bubar, “the fact that so much of the world’s neodymium and other elements is used in modern electronics is something. I call them rare earth magnetics. Any car with sensors, for one.”

Did I mention that Avalon put the Rare Metals in its name earlier this year? “It helped identify what we do,” Don Bubar says. “I mean, look-it, we acquired Thorn Lake when no one was paying attention, and now they are.”

Toronto’s Cambridge House: Joe Martin and Howard Fitch’s investment conference for junior miners is at the end of September. I’ll be there with my contribution: “My Own District 9: H1N1, Silver and Moly.” Please visit www.cambridgehouse.com. It’s free if you enlist today.

New Orleans: This October is the next conference. The New Orleans Investment  Conference. Not to attend is unthinkable – if you can spare the time and the fees. Click on here for a discount: The New Orleans Investment Conference.

The New Orleans Investment Conference in previous years has given me great satisfaction meeting colleagues, subscribers and real miners, scientists and alternative economists/technicians – and making money.

I’ll be presenting a down-and-dirty workshop, participating in a panel with Rick Rule and doing a keynote on the aforementioned “My Own District 9: H1N1, Silver and Moly” at this year’s gathering. Brien Lundin of The Gold Newsletter produces the conference, whichruns Oct. 8-11. Many of my trusted colleagues and investment sources attend the show.

This year will bring an excellent crop of counter-clockwise and contrary thinkers in the areas of mining, emerging markets, commodities and life sciences, including Great Panther’s (TSX: T.GPR) Robert Archer, Avalon’s Don Bubar and X-Tra Gold’s James Longshore.

If you are interested in a discounted rate, please visit this link for registration.

Ticker Trax™ 

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HOLDINGS: Thom’s holdings are listed for all Stockhouse members on www.Stockhouse.com. It is public and under the “portfolio setting” for user TCALANDRAfree to view. He and his family own recently minted gold and silver coins. He owns Endeavour Silver and Great Panther, both Guanajuato silver producers. He does NOT own Avalon Rare Metals, Canada Lithium, Ivanhoe Mines, X-Tra Gold or ECU Silver. 

THOM CALANDRA of Ticker Trax helps his audience find value in a quagmire of investment choices. Thom co-founded CBS MarketWatch andMarketWatch.com. As the voice of Thom Calandra's StockWatch and The Calandra Report, Thom pegged $300-ounce gold as a long-term hold. 

Ticker Trax™ is published by Stockgroup Media Inc.  Ticker Trax is an information service for subscribers and neither Stockhouse nor Thom Calandra is a broker or an investment advisor. None of the information contained therein constitutes a recommendation by Mr. Calandra or Stockhouse/Stockgroup Media that any particular security, portfolio of securities, transaction, or investment strategy is suitable for any specific person. Ticker Trax does not purport to tell or suggest the investment securities subscribers or readers should buy or sell for themselves. Subscribers and readers of Ticker Trax should conduct their own research and due diligence and obtain professional advice before making any investment decisions. Ticker Trax will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by a reader’s reliance on information obtained in the reports. Subscribers and readers are solely responsible for their own investment decisions. Opinions expressed in Ticker Trax are based on sources believed to be reliable and are written in good faith, but no representation or warranty, expressed or implied, is made as to their accuracy or completeness. All information contained in Ticker Trax should be independently verified. The editor and publisher are not responsible for errors or omissions or responsible for keeping information up to date or for correcting any past information. Ticker Trax does not receive compensation of any kind from any companies that may be mentioned in the report. Any opinions expressed are subject to change without notice.  Owners, employees and writers may hold positions in the securities that are discussed in Ticker Trax.  PLEASE DO NOT EMAIL THOM SEEKING PERSONALIZED INVESTMENT ADVICE, WHICH HE CANNOT PROVIDE.  Copyright 2009 all rights reserved.