Fisher F70, F5 & F4 Discontinued

[Steve Herschbach]

Man, I need to keep up. First Texas introduced the Teknetics Patriot in 2017, a direct clone of the Fisher F70. I did not notice that they quietly discontinued the Fisher F70 in 2018, because they are still list on the Fisher website as current models. That and there were enough models left in stock that you can still find some new with some dealers to this day. But they are very near sold out now. Anyway, the F70 is definitely gone but not really, because you can still get it at a lower price as the Patriot. The Fisher F5 and Fisher F4 models have also been quietly discontinued, replaced by similar Teknetics and Bounty Hunter models at lower prices. These Fisher models also can still be found new at some dealers but are almost gone.

Anyway, I updated the Metal Detector Database to reflect this oh so not late breaking news. 

That leaves the Fisher F11, F22, F44, F75, F19, CZ-3D, Gold Bug, Gold Bug Pro, Gold Bug 2, 1280-X, CZ-21, and Gemini 3 as current models. Of those only the F11, F22, and F44 are relatively new models, with half the current Fisher lineup being old carry over models from the First Texas acquisition of Fisher way back in 2006.

Fisher F70 metal detector

Fisher F5 metal detector

Fisher F4 metal detector

[Steve Herschbach]

There are some people like me looking forward to the Impulse AQ but that is such a tiny niche market machine I can't see it changing the needle at all. The vast majority of the detecting public will pay it no mind at all. Fisher needs something more like the Garrett Ace Apex release if it wants to generate some real buzz. A F75+ Special Edition Ltd is not going to do it. For the life of me I can't figure out why a CZ multifrequency digital stuffed in a F75 or F19 box is so hard to implement, especially when you have the original engineer on staff. They introduced multifrequency the same time as Minelab in 1991, so they were a leader in the technology. And then but for a few tweaks really did nothing to develop it further. There was a digital version, the CZ-7, but it was larger than the original and not well received, and eventually discontinued. Go figure.