The Silver Cup vein is situated on the rim of Silver Cup Basin, 14 kilometres northeast of Hazelton. The property was staked by 1909 and had been developed by four adits when it shut down in 1929. The Barber Bill property (MINFILE 093M 039) is adjacent to the Silver Cup.
The property is underlain by locally tuffaceous sandstones with interbedded argillites of the Middle Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous Bowser Lake Group. The sedimentary strata are intruded by a stock of granodiorite of the Late Cretaceous Bulkley Intrusions, which outcrops approximately 300 metres east of the property. Dikes and apophyses of granodiorite related to the stock are common in the mine workings.
The main vein has been developed by several adits and consists of a fault-controlled structure located in the axis of an anticline. It has been followed more than 150 metres in the main adit. The vein strikes 030 degrees, dipping 75 degrees southeast. It branches in places, pinches and swells, ranging from 10 to 60 centimetres in thickness. The main sulphide minerals are galena, sphalerite, jamesonite and pyrite in a gangue of quartz and minor carbonate. Numerous other small veins have been identified in the vicinity of the main Silver Cup vein.
The first discovery of silver-lead-zinc ore containing antimony was made on Nine Mile Mountain in 1908. In the years that followed, numerous other mineral-bearing veins were discovered in the area. Between 1910 and 1913, small shipments of high-grade silver-lead ore were made from 15 properties.
In 1909, the Silver Cup claim group—the Silver Cup, Silver Dollar, Duke and Duchess claims—was staked. Work completed in 1909 included open cuts and stripping. In 1910, a test sample of 18 tonnes of lead ore was shipped from the Silver Cup mine. A considerable amount of development work was completed on the property in 1911 with the intention of increasing the scale of operations once transportation facilities became available. In 1914, the property was owned by Silver Cup Mines Limited. By this time, a wagon road had been completed to within several kilometres of the Silver Cup property. The Clothier brothers leased the property from Silver Cup Mines Limited in the summer of 1914. The main vein had been developed by six drift tunnels up to 61 metres in length. Several tunnels, ranging from 7.6 to 45.7 metres in length, explored veins in other areas of the property. Higher up and to the west of the Nos. 1 and 2 tunnels on the main vein, five open cuts and one 6-metre crosscut tunnel explored minor showings of mineralization along bedding planes.
In 1917, Byron R. Jones secured the Sunrise, Silver Cup and Lead King claims on behalf of an eastern syndicate.
Sometime prior to 1925, the Silver Cup group was acquired by W.S. Harris and associates. Work completed that year consisted mainly of development work on the No. 1 tunnel and mining and shipping ore exposed on the surface above the tunnel. In total, 47.2 tonnes of ore were shipped from the property.
By 1927, the Silver Cup property was operated by the Duke Mining Company Limited. Work that year focused on the construction of a mine plant and camp buildings. Existing tunnels were renumbered to account for the addition of new tunnels at varying levels. Construction work continued into 1928 and early 1929. Development work in 1928 was directed at the advancement of levels 4 and 3, with 91.4 and 51.8 metres completed, respectively. That year, 78 tonnes of hand-sorted ore were shipped from the property. Milling operations began in May 1929; however, extensive difficulties were encountered and only one concentrate was produced before mining and milling operations ceased in late 1929. In total, 518 tonnes of concentrate were produced from 5180 tonnes of treated feed. Levels 4 and 3 had been advanced 83.8 and 79.2 metres, respectively.
As of 1935, the property was owned by J.E. McLeod on behalf of McLean, Philpott and Company. In 1950, the property consisted of one Crown-granted claim owned by L.W. Patmore and four claims Crown leased by K.A. Wilson.
In 1974, Spectrum Industrial Resources Limited held the area immediately east of the Silver Cup workings as the Beta property. That year, Daniel Basco of Nordic Mining Services conducted a geological reconnaissance of the Beta claim group.
In 1980, Short Staun Minerals Corporation conducted a program of regional geological mapping and prospecting over the Cup claims to the immediate east of the Silver Cup property.
The ground lay dormant until 2005, when Cadre Capital Incorporated staked new claims over the Nine Mile Mountain area and the Sidina Creek area to the north as part of their Hazelton project. The following year, Golden Sabre Resources optioned the claims and carried out a limited exploration program of rock sampling and soil grid geochemistry. Between 2006 and 2012, the claims appear to have been dormant.
By 2012, TAD Mineral Exploration Limited (formerly known as TAD Capital Corporation) expanded their Sidina property to include additional claims covering the Nine Mile Mountain area to the south, formerly held by Cadre Capital. That year, Rio Minerals Limited conducted grid surveys and soil sampling near the Silverton occurrence (MINFILE 093M 038).
From 1914 to 1979, 5870 tonnes produced 3 547 176 grams of silver, 560 grams of gold, 230 419 kilograms of lead and 126 961 kilograms of zinc.
Based on samples collected by H.F.S. Woolverton in 1927, an average assay for the mine was calculated to be 1483.89 grams per tonne silver, 9.98 per cent lead and 9.67 per cent zinc (Ministry of Mines Annual Report, 1928, page 155).
As of 1950, 5144 tonnes of gold-silver-lead-zinc ore had been shipped from the Silver Cup property had been shipped or milled on site (Ministry of Mines Annual Report, 1950, page 83).