VicR

Personally i am glad Minelab did not wait to have all their ducks in a row with regards to coil availability before releasing the Manticore otherwise i would have missed out on the Australian summer and finding quite a few nice beach finds (lots more than i was finding with the Nox800). Myself i wait for the dust to settle before diving into new size coils from Minelab and other coil manufactures - just not a priority for me.

Used my Schonstedt in Gusap, Ramu Valley , Papua New Guinea on world war 2 USA / Australian air fields. Had to get a back hoe digger in on one target - proved to be a dump of parts from US trucks and not the jeep rumored to be buried around that area. Just proved how deep the Schonstedt could go on large ferris targets. The guy with the white t shirt is holding the Schonstedt.

Yes - they could be well detected areas but a 40e area that you pick could also been well detected. I think the club has group trips to some their leases as well as you having permission to go there as an individual. Just a thought that it may be a good intro to West gold prospecting if you have not been there before.

Hi Ethan, A few years back you could see their leases on their Facebook page (but not now). The club is based in Coolgardie but i can remember they had a lease in between Leonora and Laverton. Best bet is to email them at littleripper.sec@gmail.com. for up to date information. I have no experience with this club or have heard from anyone that has been a member - but it could be a option if you are a first timer going to the West and dont know the lay of the land.

Any views on Little Ripper Gold Inc. - when you become a member you get access to the clubs leases.

Well that explains why Coiltek does not sell to distributors who do not have a retail outlet - they will be offering direct sales themselves. Just did a quick check on the Goldhawk 10 x 5" - Coiltek sell for $579 AUD + $35 AUD flat rate shipping, the local distributor in Adelaide sells for the same price of $579 AUD but has free shipping so i am not too sure how many sales Coiltek will pick up locally in Australia. Maybe not set up for the Australian market.

I think there is a few factors at play for high cost pf PI machines - As mentioned very high development costs over many years - Tooling costs - I would guess there is a smaller market for gold detectors - just by looking at the metal detecting club i am in - less than half of members have a PI machine while all have a VLF therefore you have less per unit sales to amortise your fixed costs of R&D and tooling. - being smaller production runs production costs are higher - Marketing - you are not selling a PI detector - you are selling the dream of finding untold wealth - there is a price for dreams. At the end of the day there is that sweet price point where a company maximises profit by not significantly affecting demand by having too higher price - and the above other factors just fall into line so you do not end up with cost plus pricing. Oh - nearly forgot competition - always good to keep prices lower.

Hi Norvic - the picture i used was from a Aust. Govt. Dept. web site so i am pretty confident its accurate - its interesting how the West to East distance is just about the same for both USA and Aust - both are a B....y long way.

I think Norvic's picture of USA /Australia land mass comparison has the USA size adjusted to account for Alaska. If you take out Alaska and Hawaii this picture gives you a better idea of the relative sizes. So the lower 48 states are still larger at 3,120k squ miles while Australia is 2,941k squ miles.

I have been told that it is worth while getting this update even if you dont have the problem with the internal speaker (or dont use the internal speaker) - as explained to me by a person in the know at the same time as doing the speaker fix they give the unit a thorough service so i dropped off my 6000 at Minelab , Adelaide with coil and battery attached. After two days it was ready to picked up. So the service report read - Control box - Full service check on control box with no fault found. Cleaned all internal connection and pins. Audio modification completed. Battery Pack - Service check on battery with no fault found. 11 inch coil - service check on coil with no fault found. A few people i know have had this work done and swear that the machine is running a lot more stable - so i am keen to test it out as soon as the weather cools down a bit.

Could have something to do with the floods they are having in Queensland.

Its mid summer here so I have been to the beach 11 times with the Manticore. There is a jetty (Pier/wharf) that i would regularly go under that would send the 800 crazy from EMI - the Manticore does not know its there. I run it at about 22 on the beach so it is nice and quiet - still have not found a place (land or sea) where i can run it greater than 24. With the 800 i would regularly dig 4 or 5 bottle caps on every hunt - that has stopped now though i still dig ring pulls just in case. It certainly feels like it it is a more powerful machine and it is finding plenty (including my first Manti gold ring) on the beach but time will tell after more extensive use. Amazing how quickly you get use to the screen ID and rely on it - i tried the 800 again and kept on looking at the screen for more information.

No Issues from me as well with regards to PM but if i can make a suggestion - on another forum i get a email everyday letting me know yesterdays forum activity which i find useful as sometimes on DP i miss a new topic that is of interest to me and stumble across it a few weeks later. I don't think you have that function now ( or something similar) - please let me know if you do. Otherwise a great place to share quality information about all things detecting.

I always believed that China was listed as one of the countries that you cant take your detector to and that metal detecting by the public was banned.

I will go for 0.55 grams.

Being in Adelaide (like me) you should also consider the fact that you have Minelab head office at Mawson Lakes in Adelaide - which is very convenient when you have repairs to a Minelab product as you can just drop it in and pick it up in a few days like i did recently with my GPX6000 speaker EMI upgrade.

Competition can only be a good thing for all of us interested in metal detecting. Will keep Minelab honest and on their toes - so i think it will be good for Minelab as well in the long run. There is a free trade agreement between USA and Australia if the Axiom is made in the USA so no import duties would apply but would still be subject to the 10% goods and services tax and special (high) world pricing Australia (& NZ) generously receives. I think Axiom will sell somewhere between $6.5k and $7K AUD in Australia so will be cheaper than the 6000 which sells for $8k AUD. ( i have not heard of anyone getting a discount on the 6000 in South Australia and people have tried). The Tibooburra video in my opinion is not very conclusive as Tibooburra is a very easy place to find gold - took a group from my Metal Detecting Club up there last month and 3 people who had never found gold before found gold (using a variety of machines) and all club members (bar one who had a medical condition limiting detecting time) found gold. Tibooburra gold is usually extremely tiny - last trip over 6 days using a 6000 i found 30 nuggets for a grand total of 2.2 grams! Some were a tiny 0.01 grams. I think the video find was about 0.1 grams so not small for Tibooburra. Will be interesting to see how the Axiom performs in a harder environment in terms of mineralisation and the amount of gold around - say in the Victorian gold fields. Time will tell how good this machine is.

My 4500 was a late production model - no problems with the PCB board.

Interesting exercise to quality review all Minelab detectors i have owned over the years - Excalibur 1000 - had too many faults to list but this was over many years & lots of sea use. E - Trac - no problems' Equinox - no problems GP3000 - no problems Vanquish 340 - no problems Gold monster - no problems GPX4500 - faulty battery and loose switch repaired under warranty GPX6000 - no problems after 1 year

Had our detector club meeting last night in Adelaide , South Australia. Five members have a 6000 (most have purchased it in the last 6 months). So i took the time to ask if any one had any quality issues with their machine. Not one issue or complaint was the reply and not one person has seen a error message yet. I also asked about the shaft and everyone seemed ok with it - just a recommendation to take the shaft apart and clean it up if you are having problems locking it. This is just a observation of a very small sample size and I am not doubting the people who are having issues which must be very frustrating when you have spent so much of your hard earned on a new machine but it just makes me wonder how big a problem this quality issue is.

Interesting to read comments about quality issues with the GPX6000 - i have had mine for over a year now and have used it extensively in Victoria , South Australia and New South Wales with not one quality issue or any issues using it - i have never seen the error message. Maybe mine being from the first production batch had more production quality inspections - nothing worse for a company than a new product release following by an avalanche of quality issues.

Good point about Russia's war on Ukraine - it would affect Codan's sales but i think the $54m though positioned on the map over Russia is for the whole of Europe and Russia. So the loss of sales would be a lot less than $54m.

June 2019 to June 2021 Codan's share price jumped from about $3 AUD to around $18 AUD which is a huge increase - current price of about $6 AUD is still about double to where Codan's share price has historically sat. Looks to me that that the market was expecting the GPX6000 to have a greater impact on the companies profits than have materalised so far. Lets see if the share price jumps again when the next new product is released.

Share price is a reflection of what the market thinks will happen in the future - Codan board in their half yearly February 2022 report could not forecast with confidence what sales will be for the next period even though they had just reported their best sales and profit ever. Markets hate the uncertainty of no sales/profit forecast and there is the added uncertainty of a newly appointed CEO in Jan 2022 - who just happens to be my old boss (i have been retired for 5 years now) - he is a good operator and i am sure will do well at Codan.

Well i was ready to jump in and get the small Coiltek mono - now i will have to wait and see what Nugget Finder has to offer before making a decision.