I bought into Great Bear as a Success In Progress play. That means I missed the initial discovery. This was deliberate (I was following the story already) because was initially skeptical of the size potential. I stepped in after the large size of the discovery became more obvious. I was fine with that because the drills kept turning up more high-grade gold and there was much less risk in the speculation. I also saw the company as an obvious takeover target—which is what just happened, with a $30(ish) cash or shares offer from major producer Kinross Gold. Along the way, I took profits and went risk-free in the play. As it turns out, I'd have a bigger win today if I'd not done that, but that's hindsight. If an endangered mosquito had been discovered on the property, my big win would have turned into a big loss. As is, I slept well the whole time and still almost tripled my investment.

This includes GBR later spinning out a royalty company, GBRR. As a shareholder, I got free GBRR shares, which I'd still own today if I were not a newsletter writer with a public track record. I opted to sell everything and include the GBRR gain in my GBR gain, to keep things simple.

Note also that the $30-ish offer includes contingent payments. That'd be a reason for shareholders to hold until the deal closes. Another would be the possibility of some third party stepping in with an even sweeter offer for Great Bear. But none of this is certain, and my portfolio was getting a bit bloated, so I took the cash and am moving on.