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Yes, my favourite coil selection was based upon giving me the best chance in any situation. Sadly X-coils no longer make any GPX coils, although they're considering it again since the Algoforce came out, and if the Nokta uses GPX coils that would really seal the deal, but it probably won't. I have a few of their GPX coils but the 10" is without a doubt the standout to me.

Looks like a selection of coils that I would think would cover almost most any target at any depth or size possible with a detector. I might have to rethink things a bit. I just checked their web-site and they do not offer this coil anymore, kinda would like one, hopefully they bring them back.

Admittedly I had lost all interest in First Texas and their detectors for some time, I haven't been detecting all that many years but I jumped through the First Texas ranks with a GBP, GB2 and two models of the Teknetics T2 along with their F-Pulse, now I even have an F19 on its way. It appeared with their lack of new products and very dated models they were just another generic detecting company, not something to really pay much attention to. My most recent of their purchases was the F-Pulse not all that long after it came out, while a decent pinpointer it is hardly something to be excited about a company's prospects over. Other than a coil that nobody seems to know much about and I haven't been able to find anyone that actually bought one they haven't really released anything for a very long time, and when they did it was just a rehashed older model, or as we like to call them paint jobs. Recently they started an Ebay firesale letting buyers dictate the prices they are willing to pay for their detectors, and people have been getting fantastic deals, but if you sit down and think about it for a bit are the deals really fantastic or are they about the price the detector should be in today's market, with the various competitors leaving these models well behind, it seems more like they're working out the prices people would be willing to pay and running with it, they've probably sold more of their higher end detectors in the past month or so with this firesale than they have in a year or two. Suddenly First Texas is being talked about again by people that had little interest in their detectors when they were full price. Many of us predicted this would happen one day where their high-end machines are basically entry level in the modern marketplace. I was thinking this is it, they're just going to clear out the stock and wind up the hobby detector part of their business, then I took at look at their Facebook group, I hadn't bothered to look at it forever as they were just a stagnant business. To my surprise it was very active, mainly with their marketing of course but active none the less. Every few days they're doing posts marketing their products, this really took me by surprise, and they had no indication at all they're doing an Ebay fire sale, another surprise, if there was a good place to announce it you would think it would be their Facebook group with 24000 followers, that's a broad reach of people that would see their sale that may not know about it. I think they're just settling into the new normal, working out the ideal pricing for models where they can get sales and will then return to their status quo of selling the same old models for the next decade. They appear to have a larger focus on metal detecting products outside of the hobby market on their Facebook group too, which probably demonstrates where a much of their detecting income is derived from. Their last marketing post was only 2 hours ago. Here are some of their recent marketing posts. So, they do have a pretty active marketing person on Facebook, and someone making up fancy marketing pictures. I hope they survive as a hobby detecting company, and I really hope they've got at least one more "New" detector up their sleeve, a Gold Bug 3 would be something many of us would appreciate, but I'm sure a F75 SMF would be more of a crowd pleaser for a bulk of Fisher fans.

Well... it did find you gold so you shouldn't be too hard on it. D4G

September 24 2002 Digging Deeper We all got an early start to our workday. The weather is still holding up with temperatures in the 70’s and no rain. The haul road is in great shape and we are trying to get our glory cut finished before the next storms set in. Jacob said we are on borrowed time and the weather could change quickly. Even snow could be here soon which would likely end our season. Jacob is still working his way deeper and the test pans are fair with some coarse gold. Nothing like we are thinking we might get but we are absolutely convinced that there is a big pot at the bottom. If only Jacob could get down there with the excavator. He is trying his best and that’s all we can ask. We washed another 100 yards and will do a cleanup in the morning. Not expecting anything great but it will add to our totals. I called my wife tonight and told her we are getting near the closing of the mine for this year. Can’t wait to get back home. TO BE CONTINUED ............

I agree, the stock 11" is a great coil on the 6000 outside of its issues. I have been lucky with it so far in regards to those issues. The 10x5 is great for in the water creek detecting on the 6000. It has kind of taken over from the Gold Monster for me in that department because of its extra depth & edge sensitivity while still deadly on the tiny stuff. The 10x5 has proved itself to me finding gold in creeks the GM missed. Being just that bit deeper. On absolute bed rock scrubbing I would still give the GM the nod but throw in a bit of gravel & more depth then the 10x5 holds its own. Throw in some crevices & the ability of dragging the 10x5 on its edge down those crevices & its edge sensitivity comes into play as well. Like any detector & coil combo it comes down to the terrain, & the size & depth of gold expected. No one set up is going to do it all. D4G

I just checked Ebay and they are still listing my CZ-21 with 10.5" coil for full price- $1579. I guess you have to make an offer on that one to see how low they go? Probably going to try to sell mine is why I was interested in their price.

Nobody is blaming them for an anniversary since nobody including Minelab cares. It’s just a marketing tool and not why they are blowing the Manticore out the door at deep discount. I’ve been too deeply involved in how the corporate world works to be anything but cynical about stuff like this. They are not anyone’s friend and not doing anyone any favors. It’s all pure cold hard business calculations at work.

I love to see the whole new lineup. But it smacks of liquidation sales in that they are burning bridges with dealers. That and seems like most of marketing was fired or quit. None of that is laying groundwork for a big release, but I could be wrong and hope I am.

He has very limited data relying on free wifi so I guess he'll pop up his photos and story when he gets home. I hope we can point the finger to an area where he finds gold, be nice to add a little NZ flake or two to his collection 🙂

I've used the following coils: GPX 6000 with 10"x5" Goldhawk; Equinox 900 with 11" stock coil. Though I don't have this coil at present, I've used the 9" Goldhawk coil quite a bit.

Quartz Rock With A Faint Tone I was out in the Nevada desert with several buddies chasing the gold near a bunch of old hard-rock gold mines. I found so many pieces of old blasting caps with the Equinox, I thought I was going to go crazy because of the nice non-ferrous reading on the Nox. The Oldtimers sure did a lot of work in the area as there were massive mine dumps in front of the adits, all of them running in a crescent shape around the mountain. I headed up a little gulch that ran up and away from a large mine, and I started finding projectile (lead) after projectile, over and over again. And, the trouble with spent rounds is they ring up on the meter right in the gold range, so after an hour of finding my own lead mine, I headed back down the mountain. I walked over to another mine dump from a smaller mine, and I started finding square nails and more bits of wire and blasting caps (if I'd have kept all those bits, I could have started my own copper mine too), so I headed back to the rendezvous point to see what the boys had found. One of them had an oval piece of white and stained quartz about the size of a folded pita, and he was swinging his Gold Monster back and forth over the rock, and he kept getting a weak signal. (The meter would hop over toward the positive side, but then skip back.) My buddy had a rock hammer with him, and he started chipping off chunks of that quartz, then they'd scan them. With every chunk that gave no signal, he put them in a little pile. He kept chipping off chunks until there was only about a golf ball-sized piece of the original rock left. In that chunk there was a signal, and when he hit it with his rock hammer, it opened along a fracture line and there was the gold! Nothing big, but the only gold we found that day. All the best, Lanny

I narrowed it down to my favourites per detector. If I was forced to narrow it down to 3 it would be the 10x5" Coiltek on the 6000 and the 15" CC and 8" on the GPZ, those two are very different in their application so I can't pick between them. If I was forced to pick a VLF I'd take the Manticore although I prefer using the GPZ and GPX now over VLF's, that took me years to decide but I just don't really enjoy VLF's now looking for gold. I haven't gelled with the 12x7", its lack of edge sensitivity really bothers me and I just prefer the 10x5" and saying something like the 12x7" will give more depth doesn't overly matter, if I wanted that I'd stick with the stock 11" as it gives more depth than both of them while maintaining almost all of the sensitivity, so the 10x5" is more for the shape and size than anything and the 11" for all other applications, the 11" is a stock coil that's actually really good, apart from its quality issues it's a hot good coil and the aftermarket coils aren't overly necessary unless size matters. Something else too, I've probably had the 12x7" on the GPX the most as I've been too lazy to take it off 🙂 I've given it a good chance.

Folks.. you can't blame Minelab for the fact that on its 35th anniversary.. it reduced the price of Manticore for a certain period of time... Here in Europe, Minelab is giving away a free big coil for the Manticore for its 35th anniversary... I think it's a fair offer... I'm personally saving money this year,,, so I'm not buying another detector...but it might be useful for someone... But it's up to everyone how they approach it...

In the UK, dealers are offering a "free" M15 coil (previously a "free" ProFind 40) with a new Manti, while keeping the same selling price. From this I infer that Manti sales have been ok but have slowed down a lot, and sales of the M15 and ProFind40 have been very sluggish! I don't expect to see price reductions, but who knows what the future holds? Prices of used Noxes are going down still.

I've got quite a few more pages done lately. (It's a lot of work to decide which stories and notes to include, plus the time to rewrite them.) It's given me a lot of respect for anyone, anywhere, that's ever written a book. (Sent the following to Jim today who asked about the writing--thought I'd share it as an update as well.) "I will admit that at this time of year the book writing is starting to conflict with the gold season, as I've been going through my detectors and ATV's to make sure everything is completely ready for the hunt to begin. Furthermore, I have to get out to check on the gold camp to make sure the trailers are all ship-shape for camping throughout the spring, summer, and early fall. There's still a lot of snow in the mountains, and that's where we've been chasing the gold for quite a while now. In fact, the elevation where we've been getting the nuggets is way up there, so the snow won't be gone until June at the earliest, but there's lots of other places at lower elevations that hold good gold as well, and that will keep us busy." (My son and I chase the gold together as often as we can. As well, my wife is a great panner, and she loves to pan the nuggets we throw in the gold pans along with the attached clay, etc., so we don't have to take the time to recover each and every target--saves us a lot of downtime, so we use the time instead to keep finding targets to throw in the pan. All the best, Lanny

Finally(!) competition is biting Minelab in more places than one. If Garrett comes through as many are hoping/expecting, that's likely one more chunk out of Minelab's hide (err, bottom line).

I am sure you & JW can make that happen. D4G

Yes, he has been very slack in photos. None in fact. What he tells, & that is very minimal, kind of means nothing without photos. A photo tells a thousand words & would make his sharing of his journey a lot more meaningful. D4G

If I hadn't bought my Manticore over a year ago I would be pretty upset. I can see why people would be upset if they had bought one just before it went on sale. They must really need to move some stock to give such a deep discount. Got to keep the stockholders happy! There are so many new metal detector models coming out now days, people change detectors like they change their underwear. To me Fisher looks like they are clearing out all their old stock on eBay, taking any reasonable offer made. That means one of two things, there are getting out of the consumer metal detector business or they have a whole new lineup of new models coming.

I would have been impressed too if they had released the FindX with a 9" ( or elliptical 10X8 ) stock coil instead of a 11". With a 11 coil the machine will be front heavy and they will loose a lot of potential customers , children , women , and more generally users looking for light machines . A 9 coil is much more cumfortable to use and it has very good depth and separation , and I dont understand why manufacturers continue to release new detectors with such big coils . Probably because bigger is better ... 🙂 Hopefully there are exceptions like the ML Vanquish 340 or 440 ( elliptical 10X8 stock coil )

Thats already a LOT more than most people have. D4G

Bloody hell, so out of all of those, which do you use that gives you the most success? There must be a favourite stand out. I think your last gold finds post was with the 6000 & the NF 12x7. No mention of the NF 12x7. above yet it found you gold. D4G

Assuming it’s an overstock you get that inventory down and get very cautious bringing in more. In my business inventory control was every bit as important as sales. That’s cash on the shelf and you can go broke sitting on dead money. Reality bites in business and if the Manticore is not selling as hoped it may need a price reduction. More likely they flush the overstock and things go back to normal, albeit with lower sales. No gravy train last forever and all businesses have ups and downs. If the down gets severe enough you lay people off and/or close facilities. I think hard times and hard choices are coming in metal detector land. Tesoro is gone, White’s is gone, First Texas likely to be the next exiting the business.

aww, I wanted Garrett to be having some impact on them, it's good to have very healthy competition spread across many brands. It's safe to say Minelab don't dominate the VLF market like they once did, it's more balanced now, a healthier market. How can they recover from a sale like this though? you can't do a sale like this and expect sales to resume at normal pricing afterwards, people will be so hesitant to buy at the old pricing now knowing they can and will sell it so much lower. Dealers are going to have a hard time with people saying wait a minute buddy, it was this price a few months ago! They may sell a bunch of detectors now but they're going to go dead quiet for many months after it.