9/30/20 Report - How Things Change! Big Metal Detector Companies Going Out of Business.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

1997 White's Metal Detector Advertisement

If you don't stay ahead, you become the behind.

I just came across a letter from Ken White of White's metal detectors announcing that they are shutting down manufacturing at their Sweet Home facility.  Here it is.

To our valued White’s Dealers-

This is a very difficult message to write, but the time has come for retirement from White’s Electronics.

We are suspending manufacturing operations at our Sweet Home facility while we re-evaluate the future of the company. It is never easy to make these decisions, however, we are faced with the reality of intense competition in the industry and ongoing counterfeit instruments coming from China. Lastly, there have been critical material shortages since the Covid 19 shutdown that we now find insurmountable.

All of us here in Sweet Home are grateful for your service. We consider each of you as part of the White’s extended family.

Sincerely.

Ken White.

They aren't the only ones.  I understand that Tesoro has gone out of business too.  Those are two of the big metal detector manufacturer's that fell behind.

Things have changed since I used my first metal detector about fifty years ago.  It was a Radio Shack, I think.  It wasn't much good, and I didn't stick with metal detecting then, but I cam back some years later and really got into it.

My first serious metal detector was a White's that I got from a Sears Roebuck catalog.  You can't get those huge catalogs any more either.   They were the Amazon of the day.

But things change.  

To me it doesn't seem like things change a lot because I usually look more at general principles and the big picture.  Most of the stuff they advertise doesn't matter much to me.  I'm not so much into all the bells and whistles.  I just want something that does the job reliably.  I don't need the machine to do all the thinking for me.  The human brain is much more powerful than any information processing they put into a metal detector.  

Everybody wants deeper.  To me, where you look is more important than that last inch of depth you can get out of a metal detector.  Of course I want some good depth, but there are a lot of other things that are more important, and how you use the detector has a lot to do with how deep you can detect with it.  The metal detector is just a tool.  Your skill in using it is very important.

They are always coming out with new models and the latest and greatest thing.  The full-page ad from a 1997 issue of Gold and Treasure Hunter Magazine, shown above, mentioned the Goldmaster V/Sat and Sierra Gold Max.  I don't remember either of those, and you probably didn't either.  

Coincidentally, I found another full-page ad in the same magazine from the other metal detector company that went out of business.

Full-Page Tesoro AD In The Same 1997 Magazine.

I don't know who designed those ads, but they look a lot alike, don't they?  And who remembers Micro-Max?  Probably only the people who had one.  Not me.

I had a few Tesoro metal detectors in the past - one was a Royal Sabre, another was a Silver Sabre and one was a Stingray.  Tesoro detectors seemed to have a fast reactioin time - meaning you could sweep them fast, and I always found them good at detecting small gold and platinum, but one of the main reasons I liked Tesoro detectors was their Lifetime warranty, but then they started declaring some detectors obsolete, which meant the lifetime warranty wasn't a lifetime warranty.   And I had some old models, which worked fine, but when they needed service and they didn't honor the lifetime warranty, and I never bought another one.

The Royal Sabre had a number of interesting features, including notch discrimination and surface blanking, which it provided before most other detectors had those features.  Because I was mostly a dig everything kind of guy, I never used surface blanking much, but I did use it a few times.  It would filter out larger and surface targets in junky areas.

I had trouble with my Stingray when I got it.  It wasn't grounded properly and I sent it back a few times before they finally sent me a one with the coil hard-wired.  Problem is when Jack was gone, they thought it was a modification I made, which voided the warranty. 

In the same 1997 magazine I found a six-page ad by Bounty Hunter.  I don't know how much good that did, but they are still around.

Garrett had a big ad on the final outside page.  Of course, they are still around, but it seems not as predominant as they once were.  They were advertising the GTAX - not GTX.  

There was also a full-page ad for the Minlab XT 17000 and SD 2000.  Minelab was not the big name back then that it is today.

There was also a small ad by a store offering the Fisher Gold Bug.

I've owned and used metal detectors by all the metal detector companies mentioned today except for Bounty Hunter.

Soon after my first serious metal detector, the White's Coinmaster that I got in the Sears Roebuck catalong, I got a Fisher 1280 Aquanaut, so I could hunt in the water.  I started hunting in the water a lot and that took my jewelry hunting to another level.

After the Fisher 1280 I started using mostly metal detectors that were made by individuals.  They were great.  My first of those was a modified Nautilus made by a Steve Noga.  I think he was in Maryland at the time.  After that I used Aqauasound detectors made by Herb MacDonald. They were very similar to the detectors that Steve Noga made.   Herb is now deceased, and I don't know what happened to Steve.  Those were very good detectors.

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As I looked through that old magazine I noticed an article on how to systematically sample a creek for gold nuggets.  Sampling is an important and much underappreciaed skill for any detectorist..

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 XRF analyzers can be used to test coins embedded in plastic holders without removing them.  

https://www.thermofisher.com/blog/metals/can-xrf-technology-produce-accurate-analysis-on-a-coin-in-a-holder/

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Source: nhc.noaa.gov

There are no new storms, but there is one wave that could develop, and the surf remains around two feet on the Treasure Coast.

Happy hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net