Merrill On Minelab And Parent Codan

[PSPR]

Merrill of Detecting NYC presents a little interesting info on Minelab and its relationship with Parent Codan.  Codan stock has been in the tank lately and their money maker, Minelab, may be releasing the Manticore and the Nox 700 and 900 so close together to try and spur a much needed sales and profit boost.  You be the judge.

 

 

[OhioHunter]

I'm glad I am waiting for some good test before committing to either detector.

[Steve Herschbach]

It's not rocket science. Minelab has been riding a non-reproducible sales wave for a decade, one based on an electronic gold rush in Africa and other places. Gold rush events of this sort are always short lived. They produce spectacular sales and profits, but it never lasts. Now comes the hangover. The easy gold is playing out, and detectors are getting set aside while more serious mining methods take over. Electronic prospecting is going into decline, and it will be very difficult to make the numbers up elsewhere. Coin and relic detecting is a very mature market. Minelab was actually a weak player there, and not until Equinox did they make serious coin versus companies like Garrett. So they did well grabbing some market share there to help offset the problem in the goldfields. Made easier by Tesoro and then White's dropping out. Fisher is not even trying to compete - not even a "new" Fisher F75 repackaged for the 8th time just in time for Christmas this year. Now the low hanging fruit is gone, and things are getting more competitive. Nokta is turning up the heat. Garrett is waking up. That hurts margins, which hurts stock prices.

People may not know it, but the pandemic also was a boon for detector sales. People sought out of door activities. That mini boom is also over, a double whammy. So yeah, you bet all the super great deals (buy a detector, get one free) and new detector introductions are aimed at fighting all that. But the big picture I think is that the heady growth days are past, and detecting is not an area I'd start a new business in these days. Competition between the remaining companies will only increase, while the coins, relics, and gold get ever harder to find. Not a super bright future there in my opinion, just a hard slog to not lose anything as peak detecting fades into the rear view mirror.

[phrunt]

I don't see why pushing out the 700, 900 and Manticore at once is a strange thing, they're covering all bases with three detectors based on one really, they're all a NOX just with more features the more you pay.  Just releasing a high end detector (Manticore) doesn't bring in as much sales as the cheaper ones.  They needed to fight back to Nokta somehow, a law suit was obviously one method but having new detectors with similar features closer to the price helps too.   Just being new encourages sales, the Nox is now quite an old model.   I always hoped I'd have a replacement to my Nox once it was out of warranty, not because its no good anymore but I would think 3 years is long enough between models for them to provide decent improvements over the previous model, looks like they've delivered on that so I'm happy.

I think detecting is a dying hobby in many places, Europe will hold on for a long time with all their ancient finds so it made sense the Manticore release focus was Europe. 

The African gold rush is certainly slowing down, I wonder if there will be another rush somewhere else.  The Aussies are still pulling a lot of gold out of the ground with their detectors, and South America is doing well, a guy I know there is doing incredibly well, massive gold down in Venezuela.

Can't sell to Russia which was previously a very big market for gold detectors and also quite big for coin detectors with their ancient finds and who knows when and if that will be a market again for them.

Beach detectorists are the lucky ones their finds replenish although a lot more people wearing junkers these days.

As competition heats up which is very much is at the moment Minelab shares are likely to be on a downward trend for some time, I really thought that Manticore would give them a boost, as yet it hasn't.  The boost they got from the Nox when it came out was incredible, perfect timing with a great detector I guess.

The world economy isn't in good shape either, less spending on things such as metal detectors, people less likely to upgrade if they don't need to.

On a side note, I do love Alf!

[strick]

Despite the doom and gloom you fellas are indicating I will continue to search out new locations to detect and hunt with a detector till I am no longer able to swing one or climb up and down mountains and or run from authorities...its the adventure and excitement when I find something really great that makes me want to keep going as long as I can. At 59 I still got a few good years left. 

strick 

[Jim in Idaho]

3 hours ago, strick said:

Despite the doom and gloom you fellas are indicating I will continue to search out new locations to detect and hunt with a detector till I am no longer able to swing one or climb up and down mountains and or run from authorities...its the adventure and excitement when I find something really great that makes me want to keep going as long as I can. At 59 I still got a few good years left. 

strick 

Strick, you got a lot of years left! I'll be 74 next week, and can still climb a mountain with a pack, digging tool, and detector. And, I start climbing them at 5,000+ feet elevation!

Jim

[strick]

4 minutes ago, Jim in Idaho said:

Strick, you got a lot of years left! I'll be 74 next week, and can still climb a mountain with a pack, digging tool, and detector. And, I start climbing them at 5,000+ feet elevation!

Jim

I hope your right Jim but I have a few bad habits that may effect my longevity lol... funny I was talking to my uncle who is 70 the other day...I was complaining about some knee pain and he told me just wait till you hit 70... I told him I did not think I would make it to 70 but the good news was that he would not be around to see that 😃

strick 

[phrunt]

1 hour ago, Jim in Idaho said:

Strick, you got a lot of years left! I'll be 74 next week, and can still climb a mountain with a pack, digging tool, and detector. And, I start climbing them at 5,000+ feet elevation!

Jim

You ,must have some lungs!

[snakejim]

1 hour ago, Jim in Idaho said:

Strick, you got a lot of years left! I'll be 74 next week, and can still climb a mountain with a pack, digging tool, and detector. And, I start climbing them at 5,000+ feet elevation!

Jim

Jim, I was 76 in May. I'm right there with you. My trommel is at 6,575 feet and I work up to about 7,500 feet detecting.

You young-uns got lots of time left! Best wishes! snakejim

[mn90403]

The beginning of the year I'll be 70 and my oldest will be 5!  I need a new detector and so does he.  haha  (I might use his once in a while.)  The youngest just turned two but he doesn't need a detector yet.  (Maybe his mom does or will use one of ours!)