Whites Chance At Minelab?

[Rick Watkins]

I heard this rumor once white had chance at buying out minelab, any truth to this? It was years ago.

[Steve Herschbach]

Bruce Candy offered to sell Whites his newly developed technology. Whites figured PI as a niche technology that would never amount to anything so declined. Instead Minelab was formed and that technology became the SD2000.

Probably the biggest missed opportunity in the history of metal detecting.

[Digger Bob]

And they know it too!  Haven't been able to catch up since.

[~LARGO~]

RE:  MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

Hi all,

An acquaintance of mine had the opportunity to be the first dealership in the U.S.A. for M.G. cars, you know the little sporty cars??  MG Midgets, yep those...

The man who approached him with the deal, to make a long story short (please do, gary) was the owner/manufacturer of the company based in England, who was disheveled and tired, needing a shave, wearing "a moth eaten long coat, and a soiled fedora", after his long ocean voyage from England to the U.S.

The acquaintance had been a relatively successful car dealer on the east coast, his notoriety

apparently had reached this man from M.G., but he was too busy to listen to him very long.  He said,

"tell me what's on your mind quickly."  The man says "I am the owner of a small garage in England.  We make a quality car, and heard you were successful in the auto industry, so we thought we should approach you first, to be our first Garage's dealership here in America." 

My acquaintance says to me, "I gave the guy the bums rush out my front door, as I knew what he was offering me couldn't be true".  "Now here I am a courtesy attendant, parking cars for a Ford agency here in Boise, Idaho...".  

He continues, "Looking back, and reflecting on what I had done, what I missed out on, because I was a rude, and arrogant s.o.b., I now listen to what everyone has to say, because that person may turn out to be my next very best friend, and that is a tough life's lesson I think about every day."

Indeed, that WAS a tough life's lesson.  I share it when I can, to those who take the time to listen!

Gary/Largo

[Geotech]

White's is an interesting history of missed opportunities.

[Rick Watkins]

Wow what a lesson,ibet that is in the back of their minds,what a missed game changer. So it really wasnt that long ago after all.

[Jonathan Porter]

I'm pretty certain Steve is correct, Whites were offered the PI tech some time around 1988 because at the time Minelab also did not think it was viable.

 

JP

[Jonathan Porter]

I know for a fact it was offered to Whites a long time before the release of the SD 2000 and they knocked it back. It wasn't till the results of Bruce's field testers in Victoria began to filter through to the industry that Minelab finally decided to create the SD 2000 and even then they were caught totally off guard by the massive demand.

JP

[RKC]

G'day Steve,

Someone really needs to write a history of gold detecting in Australia, even if its just an attempt that can be added to. The reality is that its probably not possible to write a history that would get all the facts 100% correct. As the old saying goes, "History is written by the winners". Minelab was the winner and the fact is that Minelab deserved to win (probably because it was a company that was never risk adverse). Back in the 1980s Minelab was everything an entrepreneurial company should be with numerous attempts at finding a winning product and not letting a few failures stop them. I remember attending a meeting of the PMAV in central Victoria during the mid 1980s when a salesman from Minelab got up to spruik a machine that could be fed by an excavator, where the dirt was run along a conveyor, and an in-place metal detector would detect anything metallic which would then be separated from the muck. A good idea, but one that did not take off for them (for whatever reason). And about the same time Minelab had the idea for a metal detector on a tennis court which would detect when a ball went over the line and was out of court. Another good sound idea, but, again, one that did not succeed for them. It is an idea which is nevertheless in common use these days, but using different technology, from another company. 

 

One of my biggest regrets of my life is not buying an SD2000 in 1995. I clearly remember pacing up and down while discussing with others involved whether or not to make what would have been a big investment for us at the time. To complicate matters, at the same time the SD2000 was announced there was a new detector from Gerald Wright in Western Australia being advertised as the latest and greatest which solved the problem of getting more depth in the HOT Australian ground than the previously used VLF detectors. I had no idea which to buy and ended up not buying either. Back then, just when the SD2000 was released, there was no reason for me to think it was anything special. The VLF detectors Minelab had sold previously were nothing any better than the American VLFs sold in Australia ... as far I was aware. The Gerald Wright detector however seemed to have a good pedigree as Gerald Wright had worked with the university of Western Australia developing mine detectors. BTW: Something historically interesting about 1995 was that the first SD2000s used in the goldfields of New Zealand (Otago specifically) did not have the instant success that they had in Australia. Far from it ... the first SD2000s used in New Zealand were soon being sold second hand for prices as low as $600. Detecting in New Zealand is a world apart from detecting for gold in any other country ... mostly because we have the quietest goldfields ground in the world. It will be interesting to see if history repeats itself in Godzone with the new GPZ 7000. I've always said that depth is everything in New Zealand, but I'm not so sure the GPZ 7000 will give us any depth advantage, because our ground is so quiet. It seems to me that it might be that the detectors designed to handle the HOT ground in most goldfields of the world are a distinct disadvantage in New Zealand (relating to the issue of depth). The Minelab SDC 2300 is however a detector that seems to me to be perfect for New Zealand where large nuggets are extremely rare (the largest nugget detected in New Zealand that I am aware of was a 20 ouncer found with a Minelab PI metal detector on the West Coast about 10 years ago). The SDC 2300 has some significant advantages with design, and the waterproofing is a big plus for New Zealand. 

 

In the late 1990s I toyed, for the second time, with the issue of buying a Minelab PI detector. And it was again a matter of finding my way through the hype. I remember having a heated discussion with a salesman in a Sydney (Australia) mining supply store who kept telling me the latest Minelab detector used entirely new technology unlike anything produced by any company before. And I had to tell him the technology was based on Pulse Induction. But he kept telling me it was nothing like Pulse Induction technology. And he was sure of this as he had been to Minelab HQ in Adelaide where he had completed an instruction course. That was enough reason alone not to buy one! Then after returning to New Zealand I went into another store selling Minelab detectors and the salesman started to tell me the Minelab detectors were the only ones that would work in New Zealand because New Zealand had highly mineralized soils. I then began to think all the Minelab salesmen must have gone through the same induction course at Minelab HQ in Adelaide and I'ed be better to get my Kiwi gold by some other means than detecting for it.

 

In the 1980s I used to keep a diary, and a few years ago I randomly opened a diary page from the early 1980s (when I was detecting in Georgetown, Nth Queensland), and the entry I read said, "There is a rumor going around the goldfields that a Victorian company was soon to start selling a Pulse Induction metal detector that could work in the highly mineralized ground of the Australian goldfields". I had completely forgotten about this rumor until I read the entry. But after reading it I remembered that it was common knowledge in the goldfields of Australia back then that the solution to getting the gold everyone knew was there but too deep, was to get it with a PI detector that could handle the mineralization. All well known these days... and, known back then (pre SD2000). I remember reading on a detecting Internet forum more than 10 years ago, when the history of gold detecting in Australia was being discussed, that Bruce Candy attended a club meeting (in Melbourne I think) where the need for a detector that would handle the Hot Australian ground was discussed. If that's true, its fascinating how things come together and someone then comes up with something truly innovative that changes lives. 

 

Meanwhile ... the Kiwi fossickers are presently out enjoying a long hot summer here in Godzone happily using their $775 Goldbug detectors. 

Regards,

Rob (RKC)