Leaderboard

http://www.minelab.com/anz/go-minelabbing/news?article=290610 http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/i-couldnt-believe-my-eyes-victorian-prospector-unearths-145ounce-gold-nugget-20160824-gr0g4h.html The weight of the nugget is 4121 grams so the weight in Troy ounces is 132.5 ounces versus the 145 avoirdupois ounces quoted in the articles.

Just read this story of 132 ounce nugget found in Victoria AU this last Friday http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/i-couldnt-believe-my-eyes-victorian-prospector-unearths-145ounce-gold-nugget-20160824-gr0g4h.html

He must be using Steve's "insanely hot settings" because he is obviously missing the small gold.

ML's parent company, Codan issued their fiscal year 2016 annual report today - in it they announced two metal detecting product introductions for their Fiscal year 2017 (1 July 2016 - 30 June 2017). the larger coil for the GPZ (just FY 2017 - no date given) an entry level gold detector for the african market "at the end of 2016". I strongly suspect that this will be a VLF machine since the price point needs to be competitive with the current African market leader, Fisher's,Gold Bug. nothing new on multi freq. or VLF detectors mentioned. http://www.codan.com.au/Portals/0/investorpubs/21 FY16 Full ASX Announcement Final Complete.pdf Minelab is the only metal detector company which is a publically traded stock (Codan) so they are legally required to publish accurate data.

I think that many of us with BigFoot coils have more than one. Once you use one for awhile, you don't want to be without one. At one time, I had three spares but they are really reliable as long as you don't abuse them so I reluctantly sold a couple and now only have one spare.

OK, here's my take. the Minelab "tax on gold" in the form of super premium pricing for PI detectors - is threatned. They have cut prices across the board on the GPX/SDC series and even on the GPZ. The GPZ is doing well in Africa. It is truly new and groundbreaking. The GPZ platform is destined to get discrimination capability - IF THEY CAN MAKE IT WORK (and I bet they will). The multi freq. platforms (FBS/BBS) have no where else to go in the next few years - The Go-Find is a flop the x-Terra platform is a dead end. is this a harsh criticism of Minelab - no, it's My own snapshot of the industry at present. Without something really new in the price/performance area - whether for gold nugget hunting or relics, or coinshooting - we are stuck with rearranging deckchairs on that famous White Star liner. Will this new thing arise? Who knows - Who will do it? - again? i suspect however that we will see an attempt within the next 18 months - I certianly hope so.

I use the same one as Luke. Had mine for a few years now and still going strong. What I really like about this one is that the "belt loop" is Velcro so that it can be put on or removed without having to take my belt off. Dean

Here's a little back-of-the-envelope figuring... Let's say the Bigfoot in active production can't justify a $500 price tag. Maybe $375 MSRP for a typical $300 street price. Let's say the manufacturer sells wholesale at 60% MSRP, that's $225 which would give a dealer $75 mark-up to street. The manufacturing costs for this coil will push $100, so the manufacturer makes $125 per coil. They average 10/month, so this comes up to $15,000 per year. Not really worth the effort to develop and tool up for such a coil. Now you'll say, "I'll bet the market is a lot higher than 10/month!" Maybe, maybe not. I knew the last guy who was hand-building Bigfoot coils, and 10/month was about right. And, to make matters worse, half of those he built didn't work, so he built 20 to sell 10. This would be an opportunity for an entrepreneur to step in and develop a family of Bigfeet coils, not just for White's but Tesoro, Fisher, Garrett, etc. Then your market really opens up, and makes sunk development costs more palatable. But it would still be a one-man band, not enough money to be made to hire any help.