Bisbee daily review., 1906-12-23
CONSOLIDATION |S HELPING
 COPPER
Metal Is Above Twenty-Three Gents and Still Advancing
 Amalgamated Production Shows Only Slight Increase.

Copper is in stronger demand and higher in price than a week ago Lake IS selling at 23 Is 10 g f-2 cents Der pound and electrolytic has been sold 10 the extent Of millions of pounds al g cents. The market is not feyerish, and there is almost no speculation .A the metal. Consumers are buying for unusually distant future dates One of the largest producing interests re ports that it has sold it's March copper already. This means that the market is on a four-months advance delivery basis. whereas business is usually done on two or three months account.
 The largest producing interests say that they see no indication of any falling off in consumption. If any thing the tendency is still toward in creased demand. notwithstanding the abnormal price level. Europe is bd.- ing a great deal of copper in the cQun- try. and steadily bidding up the specu- lative e N. B. marKes in London. The latter grade sold higher this week than it did during the speculation en- gineered by the Secretan syndicate.
 Representatives of the largest pro .dIciug. refining and selling interests express the belief that this year s production will show an increase of less than , per cent-poss1hly not more than 2 per cent. Inasnluch as there is a scarcity of labor, coke, coal CT fuel eil in every mining district. whiIer mill and shelter capacity is everywhere oyertaxed, there is no prospect Of any further increase III production during the coming six months. Fer instance, should tne two big concentrations. now being erected in Salt Lake Valley to treat Boston Consolidated and Utah Copper porphy- ry ores, go into commission in March it would be late June or early Jury be fore the first of their product would come from the eleetrolytic refinerics ready for delivery to consumers. Leaq- lag authorities therefore believe tiat the price of copper viii be above 25 cents per pound before the present ad- vance terminates
 /, Consolidation rUro-s have come to De impoItant factors in the day-to-day speculation in copper stocks. Strange iy enough, Lake Superior is the dis tgict looked 70 for coming combina- a9ns. and the Lake stocks which shared to sr extremely small extent in t.'e activities Of the past few mcnths are new enjoying prominent place in pubic interest. When one remembers that Calumet < Hecia was one of the early consultations of the Lake district that Quincy, Osceoia and Copper Range, the next most success fl mining companies there, were also formed up through the combination of several companies, it is hardly to be wondered that new consolidation stories make buying demand for Lake copper stocks.
 The mining developments of the last few years have placed more distinct and definite valuation on mineral bear Ing lands than they have possessed heretofore. It win be recalled that Calumet X Arizona and Superior & Pittsburg in the Bisbee district; Shan. non in the Clifton district: Canapea Central in the Greene district; Arizona Commercial in the Globe district, North Butte in the Butte district, and Mohawk and Copper Range in the Lake Superior district. were all de veloped in what had previously been Soh1A'StCu tOiupdIdllftiE NdIueitSA tracts of land located far away
 what was supposed to be the center og naturalization Calumet & Hecla i, buying land, and farseeing mining mel. everywhere are rlore eager in their search fer extensive properties having good surface indications than they have been in the pas. If the price. os copper is to remain for long period at it's present high level. it may be expected that other big mining com panies will extend their landed noiG- inss. and that companies having large and well located properties and moth ing else may suddenly spring prorni- Inently into public notice.
 Monetary conditions continue to ex- ert an adverse pressure on the market. but the wonderful prosperity Of the copper producing companies is a tre- mendous sustaining factor A good many e fhe copDe-s are entitled to sell higher, and this right will proha- bly, nc asser,ea n the near future.