And The Old Shall Be New!

[Rick K - First Member]

It's back!! GPX4500 - brand new and at a bargain price.

Now you can own the former top of the line for a great price. This and an SDC would set you back about half of what a GPZ costs.

http://forums.nuggethunting.com/index.php?/topic/11573-minelab-gpx-4500-now-available-again-from-robs-detector-sales/

[fredmason]

personally, I think they should have re-issued the 3500...by far the best of their non-digital machines-ever!!

fred

[Steve Herschbach]

This is the detector that drove the African electronic gold rush. It has never stopped production but has been made for years by Minelab as an "Africa Only" model. This could be an indication that increased competition and lower gold prices has left Minelab with excess stock. Regardless, a very welcome move, as once you factor in the inclusion of a second coil at $2699 this is the obvious step up from the Garrett ATX at $2120 with a single coil.

[Steve Herschbach]

The bad news is the price of used Minelab detector for those that want to sell them just got driven into the dirt. That is good news though for those of you wanting to buy a used Minelab detector. A used GPX 4500 is now worth under $2000 and older models even less.

[Rick K - First Member]

A pal of mine just sold an SDC2300 for $2000 (asking - don't know if he got that much) on Craigslist in Phoenix.

Guess it's not only the price of gold that is dropping.

It's not just gold detectors however. I have bought and sold a couple of dozen detectors in the past 18 months or so and the price of used detectors is really "soft" right now.

I just got offered four absolutely beautiful Italian Suits in my size at a gas station in Abu Dhabi for $800 - so I guess things are tough all over - but that's another story!

[beatup]

It's going to be a real good time to be a buyer looking for a good deal on a great detector.

[jasong]

I'm just guessing, but I think this is also at least in part a move to combat rampant counterfeiting which has destroyed Codan's profits, and I think Minelab should have decreased its prices years ago on that front.

 

I can't imagine it costs significantly more for a Chinese company to counterfeit a 4500 or 5000 than it does to counterfeit something else in the $1000-2000 range, especially since at this point the 4500/5000 are legacy technology, at least they would be in any industry except metal detecting. So if the cost of manufacturing is roughly the same but the final retail sale price is two or three times higher its pretty obvious which machine counterfeiters will choose to produce. I've never understood why the business department at Minelab doesn't appear to understand this and keeps pricing their products so high.

 

On that subject, still not sure what they were thinking in the 7000 business department, even though I am an owner I still think they were waaaay off base with their pricing there. I can't help but feel there is going to be some kind of price decrease there too eventually because as much as I hear sales are gangbuster I sure am not seeing a profusion of them in the field like I did when the 5000 or 4500 was released. There may have been an initial rush of buyers but by this time next year I'm wondering what the sales rates will look like on the Z. The used market there is already not exactly brisk right now, there has been one in the classifieds for some time and it's almost brand new.