MontAmmie

Could it be just remotely possible that MineLab started paying attention to all the negative feedback on social media sometime during the Tuesday run and turned off the Cabela's tap early? Maybe they decided to, I dunno, actually fill a few 5-month old prepaid orders instead of letting Cabela's make a few thousand more new ones? It's a long shot, I know. Nah, somebody at Cabela's probably wasn't paying attention and didn't pull the plug on the website quick enough.

Yes! Exactly, Mike! I've even found myself looking at those White's V3i's. I almost upgraded the DFX to one several times in the past few years, but when you have 2 teenagers....well, both time and money for hobbies is in short supply. I just kept thinking that eventually White's would roll out a lighter, waterproof version, but of course, they never have. I have no doubt that I will like my Equinox when/if I finally get it, but it seems that a lot of the joy has been sucked out of the whole thing now. I pre-paid for most of mine back in December, but the reality is that if my dealer doesn't get an 800 in the mail to me in the next 30 days I will have to cancel my order because we are leaving Florida. And all of that pre-order/pre-pay/waiting list aggravation will have been for nothing. I have unsubscribed from most of the Equinox FB groups and I probably just need to turn it all off. It's too depressing.

Vez, I did talk to Cabela's about the military discount. They said they couldn't do the 15% Minelab discount, but Cabela's does offer a 5% military discount of its own. She didn't elaborate on how to apply that discount, however. Hope this helps!

Not from me, TGO! I'm glad somebody is actually getting one!

OK, TGO-tracking number received.

I have 2 friends on FB who ordered in the first round from Cabela's and they say they got them in about 6 days by UPS. I don't think they would have any reason to lie about it. Here's a photo of one of them. We have several members of this forum who ordered on Tuesday, it will be interesting to see if they get tracking numbers and then get their machines.

Your wife must be a very smart and reasonable woman. You are a lucky man, indeed. Hope you get yours soon too!

And I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for providing a forum where we can discuss the issue in a civilized way. I totally agree with you about MineLab technology! I've never owned a MineLab detector before. Well, I guess in a way, I own one now, and hopefully I'll get to meet it someday. (Sorry, I couldn't resist). My opinion of the company has taken a severe hit in the past few days, but will I cancel my Equinox order because of it? Heck, no! Even so, I'm not trying to bash MineLab, more just trying to figure out why they are doing what I would consider a somewhat questionable business move. And they need to read and understand this-what I have read (and yes, written myself) on this forum is not even one-tenth the anger and frustration that I have seen in other public detecting related forums in the past few days. People seemed to be very happy to wait their turn in line, even if it was for months, when it was perceived that they were waiting because of a production shortage. Then the Cabela's thing showed up, and it wasn't simply a production problem, it was a corporate greed/indifference problem. Which, as we all know, is a different beast all together. You think you're waiting patiently in an orderly que for an item you have already paid for, then suddenly you realize that your paid-for item is currently being sold to a higher bidder. And all you can do is watch because your money is already tied up with the initial purchase! I hope that MineLab will get its act together very soon and at least make a small gesture toward those who put their trust and money on the line months ago and now feel they've been shoved aside. Not because it's the profitable thing to do, but because it's the right thing to do. MineLab has done the hard part of the equation with the technology, now if they could just manage the easy part with better customer relations they have the potential to completely dominate the detector market.

Steve, I understand that a corporation is run for profit. That's the bottom line and to expect otherwise from any company is pure foolishness. I don't work for MineLab and I have no idea why they seemingly disregarded all of those pre-paid customers in favor of a big box retailer. I am quite sure it had some effect on their profit margin in some way, either now or in the future. You simply don't sacrifice loyal customer good-will for nothing. I think that many of us are so passionate about our hobby that we sometimes forget that it is a business to companies like MineLab. It helped me to realize that it's nothing personal, it's just a money thing, and I hoped it would help others to deal with the situation as well.

Steve, I truly hope that a contract signed long ago is the reason they are apparently diverting much of the initial Equinox production to Cabela's. All I can say is that it must be a heck of a deal for Cabela's to get their truckloads first while my dealer has only gotten 3 (that I know of).

The long answer first. Disclaimer-I have no personal knowledge whatsoever about the business dealings of MineLab. The following is just educated guesses, personal observations, and UT Economics 101. If any of this is far off the mark, or pure insanity on my part, then I'm sure Steve will delete it. I'm just putting it out there to hopefully help others deal with our present situation in an objective way. As most of you know I've been little peeved at Minelab for the past few days over the whole Cabela's thing. And then it hit me last night that it's nothing personal with them, it's all about money, supply and demand, and corporate profit. It seems they are bypassing their dealers and selling most of their Equinoxes through Cabela's, and perhaps even some other big box retailers that I don't know about. It appears to me that at some point in the roll-out, someone at MineLab realized that they could have sold the Equinox unit, especially the 800, for far more than the $899 price tag they originally put on it. And maybe, just maybe, with all the hype surrounding the release, they didn't actually need MineLab dealers to sell the Equinox, the marketing department had done its job almost too well. But they had already put the price sticker on the thing, so what to do? Enter Cabela's. Now I have no idea what kind of profit a MineLab dealer would make per unit for an Equinox, but I have a sneaking suspicion it would have to be far more than what a Cabela's would make on one. Your friendly neighborhood MineLab dealer simply can't compete with a large retailer on volume, but they can sacrifice some of their profit margin to offer special "deals" to their customers. Cabela's is merely providing a selling platform right now, they are not actually incurring the expense of keeping and supplying them in their stores. Maybe a $200-$300 dealer mark-up vs a $100 Cabela's up-charge? Again, I have no idea. I don't imagine that the people at MineLab are losing much sleep over the fact that many die-hard Minelab fans pre-paid for their units months ago either. An extra $200,000 to $300,000 in profit would buy a lot of sleeping pills and they're not the ones having to deal with irate pre-paying customers anyway. The fact that Cabela's sold out of the 800's within hours on Tuesday is bad news for most of us. Unfortunately, I look for Minelab to keep directing most of their production volume to the big box retailer, where they keep a lager share of the profit, at least until the US demand for the full-priced Equinox is exhausted. I have a sneaking suspicion that the majority of us who are waiting to get our units from a dealer are going to be waiting quite a while. Not to mention the poor folks in places like BF Egypt who don't even have the Cabela's option (yet). The fact that Cabela's is being forced to charge a hefty sales tax in most US states might help, as well as their refusal to honor the veteran's discount. Now for the short answer. When you can log on to your computer, go to Cabela's dot com, and see Equinox 800 units for sale any day of the week, then you can probably look for your Equinox from your dealer to show up on your doorstep. Again, just my humble opinion which is worth exactly the paper it is written on.

And how soon would they have filled those orders if they hadn't been selling them on Cabela's all day? I bet they've sold hundreds today and your dealer will get how many in the next batch? Three, maybe four? I wonder how many dealers have had pre-orders cancelled today, through no fault of their own? It's like the MineLab marketing department woke up this morning and said to themselves, "Now what can we do today to alienate our most loyal customer base AND stab our business partners in the back at the same time?"

I'd be camped out by the mailbox.

Oh, I don't blame you one bit! If Cabela's did the 15% discount, mine would be on it's way to Florida right now.

I think they should stop shipping truckloads of them to Cabela's until they fill all those back orders. JMHO.

I wonder if Cabela's does the military discount? Probably not. Oh well, I've waited this long..... I just talked to them via the chat window. She said they don't do the 15% Minelab discount, but Cabela's does offer a 5% military discount.

I hope his warranty didn't date from September!

So did you guys find anything? I've been down there and found nothing. But the beaches were badly sanded in.

I've already sent a message to Terry Shannon through a mutual friend that he's gonna have some competition for those 1715 goodies next winter. I'm sure he's staying awake at night worrying about it.

Or does it seem like everyone else on planet earth already has their Equinox and is out having fun with it EXCEPT ME? You go on Facebook and there's another 5000 unboxing videos. Youtube? Forget it, all the good stuff is already dug up, waved around, and disappeared into some yay-hoo's digging bag. And all I can do is sit here and watch because I pulled a muscle in my leg a few days ago digging up a stupid pull-tab (thanks, DFX).

I guess I must have just imagined that part about MineLab saying they would try to accommodate pre-orders first.....no, wait, here it is on their official homepage: "*Initial availability will be limited in all regions due to the very high pre-release demand. Dealers will soon be notified regarding local allocations and shipments. Please contact your local dealer for specific availability information. We will be doing our best to get detectors to all customers across February to fulfil pre-orders as quickly as possible." I don't know about you-all, but that kind of suggests to me that they were well aware that some people had "pre-ordered" and those people would have priority. And no, I'm not just being impatient and wanting "instant gratification". We are leaving Florida on April 1st. After that, we won't have an address to ship mine to for 6 months.

You aren't the only one irritated by this. MineLab has used all this "pre-order, prepay, waiting list" buzz very much to their advantage to generate interest in the Equinox. And some of us have contributed to that buzz by pre-paying/pre-ordering and then participating in various forums/facebook, etc. The very least they could have done is make sure the people who played by the rules and paid for their units months ago got them first. After all, we are showing quite a bit of good faith in MineLab by pre-paying for a product most of us have never even touched. I think most people who pre-paid, like me, were under the impression that it was 1st paid, first served. Not cool, MineLab. Not cool!

Oh, I will! We love Montana. My husband spent about 20 years there (Choteau and Bozeman), so he knows the area well. I've been keeping the Landmatters and Cadastral maps open all the time while I read old mining reports. Thanks! I have another question for you guys. Does placer gold replenish itself? I know it washes down from the quartz veins in and on the mountains after water erodes it out. My guess is yes, it does, but probably would take hundreds of years to accumulate in any appreciable amounts. Thanks ya'll!

I'm in the Second Batch Club and my dealer says I'll have My New Best Friend by March 1.

Sorry, I haven't replied to ya'll. I didn't get any notifications that anyone had responded. So anyway, yes, Van, Montana has something more precious than gold....my 5 year old grandson in Bozeman. The prospecting is just something to do after he gets bored with us. And it looks like Montana does still have a few good areas left that are not locked up with placer claims. Hawkeye-From looking at Montana Cadastral, it seems that most of the original mine areas are still owned, but a lot of the tailing piles are not. It looks like they had to put their mills wherever they could find a flat spot, and often that was quite a few hundred yards from the mine itself. Andy-From reading the mining reports it looks like they used cyanide on anything that was accessible and suspected to have had a speck of gold left in it. The mining interests controlled everything and did pretty much whatever they pleased. JW- Looking at an old mining report from 1950-something, I have found a huge pile of hand-sorted material just sitting there on public land! It looks like it was abandoned at the beginning of WW1 and then forgotten. Now, granted, it is on the side of a remote mountain, but I'm going to see if we can get the ATV up there. The main areas that I'm looking at are valleys near gold-producing areas, which might have some detectable nuggets, but weren't worked back in the day due to lack of water. Do ya'll think this is a good strategy? I'll be sure and let you guys know how it goes. When I can. We won't have internet (getting an emergency satellite beacon) for most of the summer. I'm going to print out all this info. I'll probably have tons more questions when I actually get back up there and see it. Thanks so much, y'all!