First Texas To Bring In Top Engineer To Save AQ And Possibly Company

[Steve Herschbach]

19 hours ago, araratgold said:

IMHO, unless they are bringing in God himself ( Bruce Candy ) they are wasting their time. 😀

Rick

True perhaps if the only detecting market was the gold nugget market, which it is not. You guys generally sit out things like the fact that the Equinox/Deus 2/Legend debate is now what has the forums on fire, because it has very little to do with nugget detecting. Coin and relic is FTs bread and butter market, and multifrequency is where all the action is. The First Texas response so far is to just discontinue the one multi offering they have had since day one, the Fisher CZ, retaining it only still in a diving model, the CZ-21. They are simply absent from the party. Garrett's Apex may be lackluster, but it at least gets them a mention for that. Fisher is totally out of the discussion.

I agree. Minelab basically owns the nugget market, and that's not going to change. It's multifrequency coin and relic detecting we are generally talking about on this thread. It's been and still is FTs main paycheck, and milking old single frequency designs is a losing strategy in the long run. The Impulse AQ is a money and time wasting distraction. They need to bring some real competitive multi to the market fast, or be relegated to simply being Bounty Hunter. That's all they really are now, as they lower the price of the better Fisher and Teknetics models, and move them to the Bounty Hunter brand. May as well just kill Fisher and Teknetics off, and embrace Bounty Hunter. That could work for a long time, just milk that stuff for all it's worth, leveraging their low cost manufacturing facilities, and already paid off development costs, to sell cheaper and cheaper machines. Bounty Hunter F75 for $299? $199? The day is coming.

It is a losing strategy in the end, but that has not prevented a lot of companies from going down that road. Unless some huge surprise comes out of left field, that's where I see First Texas heading. Back to it's Bounty Hunter roots, and irrelevancy.

[mudwhale]

On 1/22/2022 at 10:55 AM, Steve Herschbach said:

True perhaps if the only detecting market was the gold nugget market, which it is not. You guys generally sit out things like the fact that the Equinox/Deus 2/Legend debate is now what has the forums on fire, because it has very little to do with nugget detecting. Coin and relic is FTs bread and butter market, and multifrequency is where all the action is. The First Texas response so far is to just discontinue the one multi offering they have had since day one, the Fisher CZ, retaining it only still in a diving model, the CZ-21. They are simply absent from the party. Garrett's Apex may be lackluster, but it at least gets them a mention for that. Fisher is totally out of the discussion.

I agree. Minelab basically owns the nugget market, and that's not going to change. It's multifrequency coin and relic detecting we are generally talking about on this thread. It's been and still is FTs main paycheck, and milking old single frequency designs is a losing strategy in the long run. The Impulse AQ is a money and time wasting distraction. They need to bring some real competitive multi to the market fast, or be relegated to simply being Bounty Hunter. That's all they really are now, as they lower the price of the better Fisher and Teknetics models, and move them to the Bounty Hunter brand. May as well just kill Fisher and Teknetics off, and embrace Bounty Hunter. That could work for a long time, just milk that stuff for all it's worth, leveraging their low cost manufacturing facilities, and already paid off development costs, to sell cheaper and cheaper machines. Bounty Hunter F75 for $299? $199? The day is coming.

It is a losing strategy in the end, but that has not prevented a lot of companies from going down that road. Unless some huge surprise comes out of left field, that's where I see First Texas heading. Back to it's Bounty Hunter roots, and irrelevancy.

Steve

Agree 100%! As a manufacturer here in the USA myself, a LOT of company's here are trying to ween themselves of having to buy or have their products made/assembled in China or other countries due to lead times/shipping issues and control of their products. First Texas has always been primarily a contract manufacturer of electronic assemblies for a myriad of US manufacturers. The metal detecting wing is/was just for ha ha's. Right now they are swamped and expanding the contract manufacturing side of the business.  The metal detecting side is taking a real backseat and is not where they make their money.

[Steve Herschbach]

17 hours ago, mudwhale said:

Steve

Agree 100%! As a manufacturer here in the USA myself, a LOT of company's here are trying to ween themselves of having to buy or have their products made/assembled in China or other countries due to lead times/shipping issues and control of their products. First Texas has always been primarily a contract manufacturer of electronic assemblies for a myriad of US manufacturers. The metal detecting wing is/was just for ha ha's. Right now they are swamped and expanding the contract manufacturing side of the business.  The metal detecting side is taking a real backseat and is not where they make their money.

Yes, those that think First Texas is going broke or something are way off base. You nailed it - they are too busy making real money to bother with detectors. For those that might think otherwise, check this out:

 

[TEOFRITE]

I do not understand

I just spoke to an advisor who told me that the Fisher Impulse AQ

was the future best detector on black sand, far ahead, atx

What do you think?

[Aureous]

On 1/25/2022 at 9:41 AM, mudwhale said:

Steve

Agree 100%! As a manufacturer here in the USA myself, a LOT of company's here are trying to ween themselves of having to buy or have their products made/assembled in China or other countries due to lead times/shipping issues and control of their products. First Texas has always been primarily a contract manufacturer of electronic assemblies for a myriad of US manufacturers. The metal detecting wing is/was just for ha ha's. Right now they are swamped and expanding the contract manufacturing side of the business.  The metal detecting side is taking a real backseat and is not where they make their money.

This lends credence and value to my earlier comment.....why bother keeping such iconic brands tied up, doing nothing?? They clearly dont need these brands in their arsenal so why not sell them off to another company willing to reinvest and resurrect them? I weep for the Bounty Hunter and Teknetics brands mostly....such icons left to wither away is a shame. Fisher are keeping slightly relevant due to the AQ (warts and all) and the 'good-ole' Gold Bug range plus the F-Pulse, but even that brand needs some serious investment and invigoration. FTP's detector direction basically just makes me sad 😭

[Cal_Cobra]

The day is coming....
 

 

[Steve Herschbach]

On 1/25/2022 at 8:15 AM, TEOFRITE said:

I just spoke to an advisor

I’m assuming you meant salesperson?

[schoolofhardNox]

On 1/24/2022 at 5:41 PM, mudwhale said:

Steve

Agree 100%! As a manufacturer here in the USA myself, a LOT of company's here are trying to ween themselves of having to buy or have their products made/assembled in China or other countries due to lead times/shipping issues and control of their products. First Texas has always been primarily a contract manufacturer of electronic assemblies for a myriad of US manufacturers. The metal detecting wing is/was just for ha ha's. Right now they are swamped and expanding the contract manufacturing side of the business.  The metal detecting side is taking a real backseat and is not where they make their money.

 

So...if First Texas metal detector manufacturing is just a side gig, I wonder if Alexandre knew this going in. If he could talk I would be interested in knowing how he feels about the joint venture now. I can't imagine him envisioning this and still going with them.

[Geotech]

As I mentioned in another thread, contract manufacturing is not FTP's primary business. It is slowly growing, but metal detectors pay the bills.

 

[phrunt]

That's quite concerning as it means they're in a worse position than I expected, relying on selling toys to big box stores.  I wonder what happens when the big players in the market start introducing their metal detectors at the same or similar prices as the toys in the same stores.  The Simplex may even reduce in price over time as a newer multi frequency model comes out and Minelab could and should discount the Vanquish at some point, Garrett will follow the others lead by lowering the Apex price or not sell many,  Nokta even have their mini hoard kids toy detectors that are waterproof.

It means they've got a few years yet though as they can still reduce the T2 and F75 down to low end pricing when they need to and they're competitive with the Simplex other than the waterproofing.  It all really comes down to if the international players see enough potential of putting their detectors in the US big box stores and taking on Bounty Hunter, they may just be content as they are now and not worry about it and just sell them to the rest of the world that doesn't have much of the First Texas entry level machines to worry about.

Although Nokta might read threads like this and think First Texas are sitting ducks 🙂