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Steve, I know exactly how you feel. I myself was a White's user for 37 years, and for 30 years I was one of their largest dealers. I'm still mentally numb about them going out of business. Yesterday l said my "goodbyes" to many of my friends at Whites. What a loss. Oh well...

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Is it possible White's could reorganize and start up again?

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Reorganizing means finding a buyer. Probably someone will buy it, either in pieces or as a whole. Whether that means the name will live on depends on the buyer(s).

 

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There are a lot of good detectors and idea's at White's. Someone will take it and maybe make it better.

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Sadly, I placed my last order on Wednesday.  The factory was open to dealers for one day only. I wanted the GMX Sport but they were sold out so I ordered the 24K with the 6” round Concentric and 10” DD Elliptical coils with covers. I wanted the 4x6 but they didn’t have any. I think they should have made Friday the last day. We received the email in the morning and only had until 3:00 p.m. to get our orders in.

In my conversation with Jack, he mentioned that there may be a sale in the works but couldn't tell me anymore than that.  He had to cut our conversation short so that he could get all the orders out that day!

Too bad the employees and some Distributors/Dealers couldn't come up with the funds to buy it.

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17 minutes ago, phrunt said:

I'm a bit surprised how few people care, the announcement on forums around the internet has had minimal reaction with a few short threads, most following along the lines of "outdated detectors, is it any wonder", people just shrugged it off.

I guess that was reflected in their sales figures too.  They needed better access to the world market and the prices of some of their detectors were too high for what they were.

I jumped through hoops all day yesterday to try buy a TRX, I contacted every dealer I could find in Australia, most had already closed down forever, one has replied saying they don't ship international but we don't really have stock of Whites stuff anymore.  I went through this trying to buy a 24k when it came out too.  No dealer in NZ ever took on Whites, I can get every other brand except First Texas' range, only the Gb2 and F-Pulse are sold here at the Fisher dealer, the only models viable.  The Fisher dealer that carried the other detectors closed down last year leaving the big smarter successful multi line dealer who only stocks what sells.

 It's buy from the US or don't buy at all for Whites... And US shipping is terribly expensive and at the moment very unreliable.  It might never arrive.  They needed to get their product into some dealers in other countries that were multi line big popular dealers to get sales or big box stores, not guys running out of their garage.  The big successful brands products are simple to buy.

I think their failure was partly to do with management and their decisions rather than just their products.   I know I'd have a 24k and all of it's coils, and a TRX.... and who knows what else if I could get my hands on them.  I've long read about US buyers struggling to buy their coils too.

When we had no Nokta dealer Dilek contacted our biggest dealer asking if he wanted to sell Nokta, he of course said yes.  Whites' could have done this too, it costs them nothing.

There my vent is over, frustrating when you want to buy something, to hand money over to a company, but they don't want to take it 🙂

The reasons most businesses fail is that the person steering the boat won't take advice of the most loyal team members telling them that the boat is off course. It's that stubbornness, denial,  and unwillingness to let others have a say, that crashes a business. The best thing that could happen to White's is new blood at the top.

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It's like a soap opera, but real. Maybe there should be a tell all book written :laugh: I used whites for many years exclusively from Coinmaster V Supreme until DFX. Then Minelab.... Now? Anyone who produces something I need and like. I hope White's re-invents itself. I look at things differently that I used to. I'm not really sad if a business dies, I just let it go and move on. If Whites makes a detector I like, I will invest my money with them. If they choose to rehash old designs or create new ones that don't do what I need, then I give my money to someone else. It really boils down to leadership in the end.

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