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White’s Electronics Done After 70 Years


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On 6/18/2020 at 10:20 PM, ROCKINGCM said:

Hi all,  I have lurked on here for a while and finally signed up to post.. I have 2 dead GMT detectors, any idea where I can get them repaired now?  I was trying to send them in but no replies to voice or emails. I have had them for years and don't want to just toss them.  I would appreciate any info..  Thanks to Steve for the forum, it's a nice place to look around. 

See this thread:

10 hours ago, snakejim said:

I spoke to Todd at the factory today, since I have a GMT there for repairs. They will still do repairs for the next 2 weeks; then, if you have a detector that needs repairs you will have to send it to: 

White’s East Service Center
Centreville Electronics
9437 Main Street
Manassas, VA 20110
(888) 645-0202
(703) 367-7999
Fax: (703) 367-0868
bobnpaul@centrevilleelectronics.net
www.centrevilleelectronics.net
 
I would still call the factory first, just to be safe!
Best wishes to all!
snakejim
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Sorry Guys but I just have to say it

 

I own 2 of the greatest detectors Whites ever made, Lucky for me I can still buy them, I put my heart and soul in to using Whites products but as I was purchasing more of their machines I got lied to repeatedly and abused by certain people in their corner when I called foul,

The fiasco and lies I got told over the MXS saga and again the abuse flowed, Those in charge would not listen and did their best to cover things up and silence people, Whites left supporters and owners of Whites product with little choice but to go public in a big way and only then after many heated discussions did they make an effort to resolve the issues with the MXS with some people having to send back their machine 5 and 6 times,

The Image of the MXS and of it's problematic past continued to be rammed down peoples throats with every new machine they bought out because most of their new machines looked like the Treasure Mate with new stickers and a new name but they also looked like the MXS, Every time I see a picture of the newer Whites machines my spoken comment usually ends in some foul mouthed expletive,

The arguments and such that I received when the MXS came out based on the fact that it took me literally less than 5 seconds to call foul to the misinformation that whites were putting out slating one of their own products that happens to be the most Iconic VLF ever made did not bode well with me, So much so I have stayed away from detecting apart from a few days at a time every now and then ever since the MXS wars began,

I feel sorry for the whites family, But this is what happens when people are put in charge who have their own agenda,

The main killer of this once market leader is 1) You never listened to the end user But most of all you never listened to the Experts who use these machines 24/7, You Guys might build them but you know very little about them apart from what your told or what you read,

2) Like it or not you need the experts to help you design and fine tune every new machine that comes out and changes need to be made Just like when Jimmy Sierra and Co did with the MXT and the GMT, Your software kings have very little concept when it come to real world usage,

3) But you need to listen to the end users and give them what they ask for, Not water down a product and pretend they are good Or give them what you think we need, We already know that which is why we asked you in the first place.

4) You need to review your honesty policy because the things I got told were not true and it cost me thousands of dollars only to find out I'd been stiffed.

Lastly don't blame counterfeit knock offs or cheap detectors from the EU for the fall of the Whites Empire, You did this to your selves, You wouldn't listen, You knew better and you behaved like the NSA over the MXS fiasco, You made the problem and you took our money with a total lack of accountability, You killed of Whites Electronics, Not the imports, not knock offs and we trusted you with our loyalty and our money and got burnt for our efforts, You want to see where the blame lies Go look in the mirror.

I apologize to you all so Sorry to all you DP Guys,  But I can't sit back and watch whites spin doctors post rubbish and blame other countries and knock offs when the blame needs to placed at their door, I have spent over 10 or 12 years promoting whites products and never received $0.01c for doing so, I did it because I believed in the brand, The Brand that they Killed.

 

 

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10 hours ago, Reg Wilson said:

There were more recent negotiations that you may not have been aware of.

The negotiations were as follows more or less:

QED creator: “this is a great gold detector you’d better jump onboard”

Me: we would like to buy one to check it out, we’ll cover shipping as well.

QED: “Sorry mate we are back ordered and also it’s hard to post stuff to the US. We need an agreement now.”

Me: we can buy one right now, just let me know how much. Or fly you out to SH for a demo and pay for your ticket

QED: “so let’s talk royalties”

Me: we need to check out the performance of the detector and see how it stacks up to the GPX first.

QED: “trust us mate it’s a great detector, come down to oz for an optimized demonstration in a specific location and we can sign an agreement, thinking 40-50% would be right”

Me: let me know when we can buy one and I can test it in a few locations in the US, I’ll gladly sign an NDA.

QED: ***crickets***

 

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9 minutes ago, tboykin said:

The negotiations were as follows more or less:

QED creator: “this is a great gold detector you’d better jump onboard”

Me: we would like to buy one to check it out, we’ll cover shipping as well.

QED: “Sorry mate we are back ordered and also it’s hard to post stuff to the US. We need an agreement now.”

Me: we can buy one right now, just let me know how much. Or fly you out to SH for a demo and pay for your ticket

QED: “so let’s talk royalties”

Me: we need to check out the performance of the detector and see how it stacks up to the GPX first.

QED: “trust us mate it’s a great detector, come down to oz for an optimized demonstration in a specific location and we can sign an agreement, thinking 40-50% would be right”

Me: let me know when we can buy one and I can test it in a few locations in the US, I’ll gladly sign an NDA.

QED: ***crickets***

 

Not being funny Tom but you should of gone to Aus and tried it out, Because what that man has achieved out in his shed is nothing short of breath taking, Having the resources and tooling that whites have could have been the ultimate game changer,

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I truly hope someone comes up with a deal to keep White going, keeping the tech guys and the workers and let the management go, I feel passionate about the brand and I don't want to see it die, My finest hours detecting have been with Whites and my greatest finds have been found with Whites,  I don't want to see it go like this, It would be great to see a few detectorists come together and keep the name Alive,  :wub:

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1 hour ago, Hamid said:

Picture is from Page FB White’s Electronics.

 

10CD6A48-9D72-4065-B065-798881A38AF8.png

Yes, I am sure there is global interest. The irony is the most interested parties are probably Chinese, perhaps the very people so skillfully building fake White’s detectors right now. They are building them already, all they need are the rights to legally sell them. The question is, would Ken turn down that big fat check? I’d guess so as he should have enough money already, but you never know. Talk is cheap but when faced with a large sum of money, most people will take the money.

I alluded to this earlier when I mentioned somebody buying the White’s name to gain easy entry to the market. Yeah , I know many would swear to never buy a Whites product again, yada, yada. Don’t go getting political unless you want a post deleted. It happens all the time and is not unrealistic that it could happen in this case. And for every person who says they would never buy a Chinese made White’s, there are all those people who already do. A properly made MXT at $249 would be a seller, and so would most of Whites products at similarly deep discounts. If you want to think it is impossible for the Chinese to make a quality product, well, sometimes that is true and sometimes not.

But it need not be China. Could be a Nokta/Makro for that matter, jumpstart them into PI and multifrequency. But they can probably do that in their own. As Carl has noted half White’s stuff is not covered by current patents, so why pay for what you can legally copy? Or maybe White’s UK has the resources and desire to move manufacturing to the UK? Lots of possibilities.

I could be wrong but I think it unlikely White’s will simply disappear like Tesoro. Tesoro had noting, just rotary phones. Whites has brand new machines like the 24K that can compete with the best of them. Somebody will want to buy them, it just boils down to price and if Ken will sell. Sadly, there is little possibility that the Sweet Home facility would survive. The key to fixing the current problem is low cost manufacturing in up-to-date facilities.

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17 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

....snip...

I could be wrong but I think it unlikely White’s will simply disappear like Tesoro. Tesoro had noting, just rotary phones. Whites has brand new machines like the 24K that can compete with the best of them. Somebody will want to buy them, it just boils down to price and if Ken will sell. Sadly, there is little possibility that the Sweet Home facility would survive. The key to the current problem is low cost manufacturing in up-to-date facilities, and ditching the current distribution network, possibly in favor of direct sales.

Yes Steve, it is going to be very important to see "who" buys them up!

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16 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Tesoro had nothing, just rotary phones.

Oh, that's harsh, but unfortunately true, both literally (shown in the factory sale ads) and figuratively (newest detectors had ~1990 designs, or am I being too generous with that year tag).  But most of all, what you said is just plain funny!  🤣

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20 hours ago, phrunt said:

Other than finding the rare elusive undetected good ground it does seem rare people find a good run of old coins or an undetected area for jewellery and so on.

 

20 hours ago, phrunt said:

Gold nuggets don't grow back so they're also getting harder and harder to find....

As usual there is an analogy between these two facts.  From what I've read here it's very difficult to find undetected gold producing ground, at least in the USA; not sure about Australia since so much of that country/continent has been so 'unfriendly' to exploration let alone habitation.  Africa and possibly parts of Asia and South America?  Antarctica as soon as climate change melts all the snow and ice?

Of course the difference (contrast) is that coins, jewelry, and artifacts are found where people have been -- the more the merrier (well, up to a point, even a limit there) -- and natural gold is better found where people haven't been.  For sure there are still out-of-the-way places with natural gold and even in the USA, Gerry, Lunk, Rob, and others have shown us pictures and videos of recent finds considerably larger than the (seeminly) microscopic bits I've found.  Whether these are still considered "low hanging fruit", I kinda doubt it in most cases.  Modern gold detectorists (in the USA, for sure) need to be giraffes.

Concerning coins in this country, although there have to be unsearched public areas for purely statistical reasons, for the most part it's private property (what we detectorists term 'permissions') where most of the good stuff remains, and there's probably quite a bit of that.  But just like with native gold, you have to work harder to get to that today than people did back in the 1980's and 90's just going to schools and parks, gathering up the ripe cherries laying within easy reach.

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