Excelsior Grants Incentive Stock Options

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - Sept. 18, 2012) - Excelsior Mining Corp. (TSX VENTURE:MIN)(OTCQX:EXMGF)(FRANKFURT:3XS) ("Excelsior") announces that it has granted incentive stock options to purchase a total of 2,700,000 common shares of Excelsior at an exercise price of $0.30 per share to certain directors, officers, and consultants of Excelsior. The options vest in equal quarterly instalments of a period of 24 months and have a term of five years.

About Excelsior

Excelsior is an exploration and development company with a copper project located within the Copper Porphyry Belt of Arizona. The Gunnison Copper Project is located close to the required infrastructure and its oxide resource has the potential to be mined using in-situ recovery methods. The Excelsior team consists of experienced professionals with proven track records of advancing projects towards production.

Further details about Excelsior can be found at: http://www.excelsiormining.com.

ON BEHALF OF THE EXCELSIOR BOARD

Stephen Twyerould, President & CEO

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

Information set forth in this news release may involve forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements are statements that relate to future, not past, events. In this context, forward-looking statements often address expected future business and financial performance, and often contain words such as "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "estimate", "expect", and "intend", statements that an action or event "may", "might", "could", "should", or "will" be taken or occur, or other similar expressions. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein including, without limitation, the development of the Gunnison Project and the ability to mine Gunnison using in-situ recovery mining techniques are forward-looking statements. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward- looking statements. Such factors include, among others, the following risks: the need for additional financing; operational risks associated with mineral exploration; fluctuations in commodity prices; title matters; environmental liability claims and insurance; reliance on key personnel; issues in obtaining required permits; the potential for conflicts of interest among certain officers, directors or promoters with certain other projects; the absence of dividends; competition; dilution; the volatility of our common share price and volume and the additional risks identified in the management discussion and analysis section of our interim and most recent annual financial statements or other reports and filings with applicable Canadian securities regulators. Forward-looking statements are made based on management's beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date that statements are made and the company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change, except as required by applicable securities laws. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements.