I COULDN’T RAISE A DIME OF HARD DOLLARS.

is only now creeping up as the commodity cycle pushes the price of almost every metal higher, from cobalt to copper — two other metals believed to be on the Garibaldi property.

In the past few years, when nickel as well as gold and other metals experienced prolonged depressed pricing, Regoci has struggled to gain attention.

“I couldn’t raise a dime of hard dollars even if you put a gun to my head,” he said. “There was no interest, even guys I knew in the brokerage industry, my friends, everyone was doing marijuana deals.” the stock kept rising, finally breaking the $1 threshold in September.

By October, it was trading at $2 per share, and the company announced it closed a $2.5-million private placement with Sprott for about 2.87 million shares — with roughly half priced at 82 cents per share and half at 92 cents per share — plus warrants to purchase more. He now owned more than 10 per cent of the company, according to a press release.

That same month, the stock started jumping in bigger increments. On Oct. 12, about one week after Sprott’s investment closed, the stock rose 28 per cent to $2.69 from $2.09. The next day, it spiked 34 per cent to $3.57. On Oct. 25, it peaked at $5.27, giving it a market capitalization, albeit briefly, of $450.9 million.

“All of a sudden, your stock goes up from 14 cents — it’s hard to wrap your head around it,” Regoci said. “It’s shocking.”

Fletcher, of the TSX Venture, said mining companies rely on “kingmakers” such as Sprott to identify smart picks.

Aside from the Sprott connection, Garibaldi may have drawn investor attention for other reasons: It’s exploring in B.C.’s Golden Triangle, an area where discoveries of vast ore bodies are still happening. For instance,

spent more than $250 million in the past decade conducting tests to prove that its property there holds 39 million ounces of gold and 10 billion pounds of copper.

“Understand how difficult it is in our business to make a discovery, delineate a reserve,” said Rudi Fronk, Seabridge’s chief executive. “We have all these companies in the Golden Triangle, and I would venture to say if you have five mines in there in the next five years, that’s a huge success.”

Those long odds meant that even though some investors view Garibaldi as the next Voisey’s Bay, others see a different way to make money from the huge rise in its stock price: short selling.

According to Yahoo Finance, there are still about 869,000 shares that are “short,” meaning the holders are betting the stock price will sink.

Regoci said someone even started sending letters to the TSX Venture and the B.C. Securities Commission claiming the company was a scam.

“I told my friends we didn’t have any assays, I would sell,” he said. “Take some money off the table.”

And then, whoosh, a bunch of investors did just that.

Between Nov. 17 and 22, while Garibaldi experienced a delay from the lab reviewing its drill samples, the stock dropped 52 per cent to $2.17.

Its exploration crew also ran into an obstacle: The property is located 1,950 metres above sea level and they were trying to drill in November while living in a survival shack designed to withstand heavy winds. But a snowstorm hit and they were forced to shrink-wrap the drill rig and flee for their lives.

“We were going to start on the 15th hole, and Mother Nature blew us off the mountain,” Regoci said.

The stock rose and fell several more times in 2017, but never closed above $4 per share again, and it has closed above $3 just a few times.

Regoci said he has known Sprott for about a decade and often called him when he was struggling to raise money at one of his companies.

Back on Jekyll Island, during his keynote, Sprott said Regoci even proposed a deal in mid-2017 that the TSX rejected: If Sprott agreed to invest $117,000 in Garibaldi, Regoci would offer him shares at 15 cents even though they were trading at 35 cents on the open market.

Sprott said that spurred his interest to read what people in online chat groups were saying about the company. Somewhat incredibly, they convinced him to invest: “You get smart people talking about this stuff ... saying it’s going to be another Voisey’s Bay, but bigger, so now I’m in it.”

But even Regoci describes the investment as a roll of the dice.

“I keep thinking why would a guy invest that much?” he said. “He didn’t know anything.”

Of course, for Sprott, $10 million represents a tiny fraction, less than one per cent, of his estimated $1.67-billion net worth.

Sprott declined to be interviewed for this article through a colleague. But in his video interview on Jekyll Island, he provided mixed signals about how he views his investment in Garibaldi.

Despite comparing the company to Voisey’s Bay, Sprott at the time cast it as more of a short-term investment that could rise dramatically depending on drill results. He said the better long-term play is a company called Novo Resources, which is exploring for gold in Western Australia.

“Ultimately, I think Novo, hands down, is going to provide the better return,” Sprott said.

But he continued to invest in Garibaldi, buying shares as recently as February, and at one point accumulated at least 15 per cent of the company.

Regoci acknowledged “nobody knows” how much nickel is in the property, but said the drill results so far have demonstrated high grades of nickel, copper and cobalt. His goal now is to close the credibility gap, and quickly show there’s enough tonnage in the property to justify the attention.

That goal aside, Regoci mentioned something else he’s learned from his years in the mining industry: “I don’t care how hard people work,” he said. “You need luck, you need a lot of luck.”