Just Now Sinking In

[Steve Herschbach]

My first metal detector in 1972 was a White's Coinmaster 4. I became a White's dealer in 1976. Over the years I owned the following:

 White's Beachhunter ID, White's Coinmaster IV, White's Coinmaster V Supreme, White's DFX, White's Goldmaster, White's Goldmaster II, White's Goldmaster V/SAT, White's Goldmaster 3, White's Goldmaster 4/B, White's Goldmaster 24K, White's GMT, White's M6, White's MXT, White's MX Sport, White's Surfmaster II, White's Surf PI, White's Surf PI Pro, White's Surf PI Dual Field, White's Sierra Pulse Pro, White's TDI, White's TDI SL, White's Vision, White's V3i

And as a dealer I "borrowed" and played with countless more models. Right as of this moment I still have a DFX, V3i, and Goldmaster 24K I got in the fall of 2018.

It's just now sinking in that after 48 years of using White's metal detectors, I have probably officially purchased my last new White's. I guess it is not impossible yet somebody could purchase the company and somehow take things on to new and improved models. Unfortunately, I just do not see that as being very likely. The name may continue, but White's as an industry leader is probably nothing more now than a memory. It's hard to believe that a company that produced something as sophisticated as the V3i in 2009 is now done.... I was still harboring a hope that somehow a V4 would see the light of day. In fact I figured they either pull a rabbit out of their hat, or it was over. Unfortunately it proved to be the latter.

I do know one thing. My V3i is in pristine condition, and I am going to treat it with kid gloves now. If there was ever a detector that might become a collectors item, the V3i is it. I do not think we will see anything remotely like it ever again.

The Goldmaster 24k is a very good detector, and thanks to Tom Boykin I got to use it early on and write my last big review of a White's detector. I always felt a little bad about the MX Sport debacle, so it was nice to end things on an upbeat note. A picture of my last detector from White's Electronics, quite a difference from my first "big box" Goldmaster in 1973.

 

[Jim McCulloch]

Steve, I know exactly how you feel. I myself was a White's user for 37 years, and for 30 years I was one of their largest dealers. I'm still mentally numb about them going out of business. Yesterday l said my "goodbyes" to many of my friends at Whites. What a loss. Oh well...

[Rick N. MI]

Is it possible White's could reorganize and start up again?

[Geotech]

Reorganizing means finding a buyer. Probably someone will buy it, either in pieces or as a whole. Whether that means the name will live on depends on the buyer(s).

 

[Rick N. MI]

There are a lot of good detectors and idea's at White's. Someone will take it and maybe make it better.

[Bohemia Miner]

Sadly, I placed my last order on Wednesday.  The factory was open to dealers for one day only. I wanted the GMX Sport but they were sold out so I ordered the 24K with the 6” round Concentric and 10” DD Elliptical coils with covers. I wanted the 4x6 but they didn’t have any. I think they should have made Friday the last day. We received the email in the morning and only had until 3:00 p.m. to get our orders in.

In my conversation with Jack, he mentioned that there may be a sale in the works but couldn't tell me anymore than that.  He had to cut our conversation short so that he could get all the orders out that day!

Too bad the employees and some Distributors/Dealers couldn't come up with the funds to buy it.

[schoolofhardNox]

17 minutes ago, phrunt said:

I'm a bit surprised how few people care, the announcement on forums around the internet has had minimal reaction with a few short threads, most following along the lines of "outdated detectors, is it any wonder", people just shrugged it off.

I guess that was reflected in their sales figures too.  They needed better access to the world market and the prices of some of their detectors were too high for what they were.

I jumped through hoops all day yesterday to try buy a TRX, I contacted every dealer I could find in Australia, most had already closed down forever, one has replied saying they don't ship international but we don't really have stock of Whites stuff anymore.  I went through this trying to buy a 24k when it came out too.  No dealer in NZ ever took on Whites, I can get every other brand except First Texas' range, only the Gb2 and F-Pulse are sold here at the Fisher dealer, the only models viable.  The Fisher dealer that carried the other detectors closed down last year leaving the big smarter successful multi line dealer who only stocks what sells.

 It's buy from the US or don't buy at all for Whites... And US shipping is terribly expensive and at the moment very unreliable.  It might never arrive.  They needed to get their product into some dealers in other countries that were multi line big popular dealers to get sales or big box stores, not guys running out of their garage.  The big successful brands products are simple to buy.

I think their failure was partly to do with management and their decisions rather than just their products.   I know I'd have a 24k and all of it's coils, and a TRX.... and who knows what else if I could get my hands on them.  I've long read about US buyers struggling to buy their coils too.

When we had no Nokta dealer Dilek contacted our biggest dealer asking if he wanted to sell Nokta, he of course said yes.  Whites' could have done this too, it costs them nothing.

There my vent is over, frustrating when you want to buy something, to hand money over to a company, but they don't want to take it 🙂

The reasons most businesses fail is that the person steering the boat won't take advice of the most loyal team members telling them that the boat is off course. It's that stubbornness, denial,  and unwillingness to let others have a say, that crashes a business. The best thing that could happen to White's is new blood at the top.

[Steve Herschbach]

Here is a tiny part of a long and complicated story. As I've mentioned, I was a White's dealer. White's had a few very powerful distributors. They also had an old contract with Kellyco they came to regret but could not get out of, leading to some strange shenanigans, but that is another story.

Enter the Internet. White's basically feared the internet, and prohibited most dealers initially from even mentioning they were dealers for White's on the internet. The excuse was that they were trying to protect the dealers from undercutting each other. But what they were doing was favoring the distributors, who also just happened to be dealers. They could sell via the internet, but the lowly dealers could not. Dealers were in effect having to compete with their own suppliers.

People tend to revere Jimmy Sierra, but he had a huge chunk of the White's pie, and did everything he could to protect his slice, at the expense of everyone else. A big part of what took White's down was having distributors way past the day when they were still needed, but old relationships and contracts had them over a barrel to some extent.

Eventually White's listed dealers on their website, and the most you could do as a dealer was place a White's logo on your website, which linked to the White's dealer info page on the White's website. You still could not do direct sales on your own website. In theory you were allowed to sell a small number of detectors outside your immediate local area, but you could also be sure somebody would complain if you did. White's wasted a huge amount of time chasing down and chastising dealers for the crime of selling their detectors on the wrong side of some line.

Then White's tried selling machines on their own website, and gave a kickback to the dealer into whose area they were selling. Having local dealers but then getting between the dealer and the local customer. How weird is that?

It was insanity. I was a multiline dealer at the time, and a very large White's dealer based purely on the numbers I moved locally. I was also early in seeing the potential of the internet, and drove many more sales via our website. Of Fisher, Garrett, Minelab, Tesoro, and eventually XP. But White's was basically invisible on our website as I simply went with what I could sell online without getting hassled... at the expense of possible White's sales, since they were not even represented.

By the time White's lightened up on dealers it was too late. I'm sure it was Jimmy fighting all this to the bitter end that had a lot to do with White's finally cutting ties with him.

The net effect of all this distributor control and full scale suppression of dealership selling via the internet was predictable. Dealers switched to emphasizing other brands. Any casual consumer Googling for metal detectors would hardly know White's existed. It was just not benign neglect of the internet, it was active suppression of the greatest marketing tool ever invented. This was one reason why newer people getting into being dealers ignored White's in favor of other companies that allowed internet sales. Many newer dealers were only becoming dealers to take advantage of the internet, and were not interested in regular storefront sales. White's cut themselves out of the loop.

[Geotech]

32 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Here is a tiny part of a long and complicated story....

All true.

[schoolofhardNox]

It's like a soap opera, but real. Maybe there should be a tell all book written  I used whites for many years exclusively from Coinmaster V Supreme until DFX. Then Minelab.... Now? Anyone who produces something I need and like. I hope White's re-invents itself. I look at things differently that I used to. I'm not really sad if a business dies, I just let it go and move on. If Whites makes a detector I like, I will invest my money with them. If they choose to rehash old designs or create new ones that don't do what I need, then I give my money to someone else. It really boils down to leadership in the end.