Rick K - First Member

Point taken, thanks. In any event I think I'll forward it to First Texas and tell them that they should get their finger out!

jasong, I Love the gag, but If you mean detectors well suited to OZ conditions, maybe Otherwise Gold Bug Pro and T2 - the best selling gold detectors on earth - they OWN the African market, by far the world's biggest gold detector market. Whites TDI - a competent machine. Garrett ATX - an excellent detector hampered only by it's silly packaging.

Nokta/Fors - The Turkish lira may be crap, but our detectors aren't!

https://www.facebook.com/TekneticsMetalDetectors/videos/1068234026521953/ Nice Facebook promo video for the Classic T2 - newly re-introduced.

I live in Gold Canyon - at the foot of the Superstition Mountians. Our local dealer in detecting and prospecting equipment is Promack South in Apache Junction. Dan Ware and his wife run a well stocked shop and always have plenty of time for their customers and browsers.

I'd drive the 20 miles or so to Chandler, but I suspect that there is nothing to see.

According to a thread, on the Friendly forum, Minelab in Chicago no longer does their own repairs, but outsources them to Kellyco in Fla. and to someplace in Chandler AZ for the gold machines. The guy who,posted the info is a Sponsor, so I guess he's a dealer and should know. Kellyco's repair service generally gets good customer feedback. I have no Idea who or what the Chandler AZ facility is. I checked a bit more and the address was MineLab Asc West 3863 E Sawtooth Dr Chandler, AZ 852 That is a residence however Another address was Minelab West ASC 4960 S Gilbert Rd suite 1-134 Chandler, AZ. 85249 That is a strip mall and google street view doesn't show anything like ML there. So - I don't know.

Check with Kellyco. When I inquired about whether my SD-2100 could be repaired if it broke I was told that subject to spare parts availability, they could repair it. On another forum it was said that they are doing CTX repairs for MINELAB now, so their connection must be good. As far as Keith Willis, I was NOT satisfied with my repair dealings with him a couple of years ago. Sorry.

The recently released Codan Investor publication said nothing about new detectors, or upgrades/development of existing ones. Given that their general purpose detector line is now down to the wierd GoFind series, the XTerra 705 and the very expensive CTX, it is up to the existing gold machines to save the day. http://hotcopper.com.au/documentdownload?id=uOMxKKzFkiWRTLKhOROKAxjvQkAC4g66pmOCoZlJ2%2Fk%3D I suspect the price of the GPZ was set by deciding how much cash they needed to get in in the first 6 months after introduction divided by the number of units that they expected to sell. The result was $10k per unit. They really have no motivation to make anything cheaper or simpler out of it since they have decided that "X" times $10k is how much money they want per year where X is the quantity of GPZ's sold. Every more rational but cheaper model would mean a GPZ sale and it's associated revenue lost. As far as accessories, spare parts, extra coils, etc. I don't see it happening. The negative cash flow of buying in all that stuff is the last thing Codan wants right now. Every penny spent is a penny off the bottom line NOW against a possible sale later.

I found a "Reg modded" TDI for under $1000. The threshold is lovely now.

My main question about whether this is practical concerns the probable extremely short pulse delay of the SDC, which has been speculated as being around 8 μseconds. Not many coils will work right at that short a pulse delay.

An interesting thread on an OZ forum on interchanging coils. Lots of back and forth, some misinformation - the Ismael - a long tome modifier of ML PI machines, chimes in and says - "no problem"! http://golddetecting.4umer.net/t22372-coil-question-for-the-sdc-2300#216436

Though maybe that was the case. The slip face on sand dunes in the desert is pretty steep - about 30 - 34 degrees. If you want to know, just glance at my avatar pic!

It's a miracle you are still alive!

Lots of nice talk Mr. Silver King, but I don't recall signing a model release for use and publication of that picture of me in my revels! My legal staff will be in contact as soon as they sober up.

I would read Jim's him stuff about his great silver specimens and think - gosh it would be wonderful to get to go hunting with him - forget about it - that kind of trench is exactly why I stayed out of the infantry. Lol

Again - Nice Scott.

In Codan's half year statement they described unit sales for ML as "flat". Profits and revenue up - probably due to GPZ sales. The OZ forums are all full of "the wailing and the gnashing of teeth" about how all the big detectable gold is gone. Of course, we pretty much never had much of that in the first place. Who knows, maybe you some of the accumulate wisdom from North America might prove relevant in OZ now?

Nice one Scott. Years ago I worked in Saudi Arabia with a wonderful old fellow named (according to his UK passport) "Professor Sebastian Hutton". After his stint in the Royal Tank Corps in Normandy and beyond in WW II, He got a scholarship to Oxford and majored in English. Tolkien was his tutor. Over glasses of homemade beer in our (highly illegal) housing compound pub he told me all about rings, their relation to the earth (Middle and otherwise) and their relation to gold. I wish I could tell you all about that but two things prohibit it. First, dear Sebastian's ghost would haunt me for the rest of my life and second, my investment in Codan shares would be wiped out. Oh well, that's the way it with secret formulas, mad ferrets and magic spells. I do miss dear Sebastian a lot however RIP.

I just did a scan of what I regard as the top three (other than our home away from home - here) US Nuggethunting forums. Nothing, nada. No "I just got the latest and greatest whatever detector and here's what happened - no how do I do - whatever. Just pretty much nothing. I know it's hot in AZ and Nevada but still! Please feel free to point out the error of my opinion.

As an antidote to all my amateur market analysis blathering above, here's a dose of,the kind of reaction the T2 got when it was new. http://www.garysdetecting.co.uk/teknetics_t2.htm

Codan (the folks who own Minelab) are the only one of the bunch who are publicly traded and therefore have to follow all the disclosure rules of the (Australian in this case) Government. They were to release their half-year results on Friday, but didn't. It is expected on Monday. This will give the first indication of how their strategy of "doubling down" on the "gold tax" by their GPZ7000 pricing - is working out. On point though. They recognize revenue on "sell into" that is, when a distributor gets and pays for a detector, not based on "sell through" when an end user (customer) buys and pays for it. The numbers can be very misleading if the dealers get stuck with slow moving stock - I am not saying that is,the case here - just making a general point. Anyway, getting back to the main theme. With their enormous volume in mass market outlets of Bounty Hunter machines and their very strong sales in Africa of GB Pro and T2 detectors, FT might be in a position to burn the barn down to get positioned for emerging Asian Detector markets. Every Chinese farmer knows where some treasure is thought to be hidden!!! When I first started detecting in the early 80’s the world detecting scene was pretty much North America and the UK. When Imlived in Norway in the late 80’s I Never saw another detectorist in the 4,years I detected there. The world has totally changed!

Yes, hard to see where the new 8500 goes price wise. The G2+ has the new iron tone and v break features plus the higher 19kHz freq. so It Can be priced above the T2. Heard that the "classic" F75 might be launched as well. This may have a lot to do with markets where the T2 has a lot of "brand power" and just be a shot to the chops at the legitimate and not so legitimate competition. Metal detectors have always been priced at a level well above other electronic goods of similar,complexity. There is a kind of "tax on treasure" factor. Maybe FT is going to use their market power to blow all that away and be the only one standing to meet low cost Asian competition (which is coming) head to head.

Wow! Maybe there,s something to this nugget hunting after all!!!

Looks like the gloves are off. The T2 is back as the T2 Classic and ready to fight the lowlife look-a-likes with a new look and a radical new price. For real combat check out all the camo gear in amazingly inexpensive accessory kit. If this becomes the regular price perhaps Steve should update his nugget detector guide. Teknetics T2 Classic metal detector