Amazed At How Quickly White’s Discussion Faded

[phrunt]

2 hours ago, Jim in Idaho said:

I think one of the things missed in the "reasons" for Whites going out of business is that Whites was a privately held company. The owner, and chief engineer was at, or beyond retirement age. Apparently he had no descendant able, or interested in running the company.

Perhaps the Whites people should have considered Steve's method of gifting the company to the employees, and sat back and watched it thrive, nothing motivates an employee more than it being their business.  White's would still be alive and kicking, and they could have had stipulation that new employees coming in get a % of the business to encourage new engineering talents and so on.  I think it's a great way to make a business thrive when the original owner no longer needs or wants to be there on the front line although they can still maintain a % themselves and a position in the company more on the "outside"

A computer company I worked for in my early years did that, we had 5% each staff member, It worked well, people were always motivated and cared, and the company grew very quickly.  I moved on and donated my 5% back to them when I left, didn't bother taking it out.

My wife's work was similar although she was in the corporate world and she was given a large quantity of shares each year, as were the other employees there, similar thing I guess but sure kept staff thriving to meet goals to ensure they get their shares, the better they did the more shares they were given.

Without the boss telling people what to do perhaps Whites may have done better, the engineers having the freedom to do what they want to do.

[Jim in Idaho]

Who knows? For all we know, the offer was made and nobody wanted it.

Jim

[Geotech]

When I was there, an employee buy-out was proposed but the owners had no interest.

[Jim in Idaho]

Was that a price issue Carl?

Jim

[Joe D.]

6 hours ago, Geotech said:

When I was there, an employee buy-out was proposed but the owners had no interest.

Always glad to see you chime in Geotech!👍

   This being an oldish post that was resurrected, it's always nice to get a refresher on some info, from one of the original employees! I still own three White's detectors! My modded TDI SL's being my favorite beach detectors now! (One's a backup)! The other i have is a Mxt All Pro, but not for the beach!

   Maybe you can review a bit more history of your experiences while you were there, and what you think Garrett is doing with the remaining tech and ideas!

   If I missed this previously, or am overstepping on bad memories, NDA's, etc, than no need to expound!! Just curious, and may be more suitable for a separate post!🍀👍👍

[Geotech]

Jim, I guess you could say it was price, as the owners considered the company worth way more than it actually was. In the end, the owners (& dependents) didn't want to give up the cash cow.

Joe, I'll not rehash old history, other than to say in all my 50 years of work experience, the 6 years at White's has been my favorite. I wish things had turned out differently. I have no idea why Garrett bought White's, but I suspect we've seen the last of White's tech from Garrett.

[Joe D.]

Thanks Carl,

   That's good enough for me! 👍I'm very happy to hear that those were good years for you! I appreciate the response!

   I had a big gap in my detecting years; 83-2014, and wish I had continued through them!😔 So probably why I've gone backwards on a "few"🙄 detectors from a couple companies to fill in some gaps, etc! I really enjoy them!🍀👍👍

[Jeff McClendon]

On 5/3/2023 at 1:13 PM, cudamark said:

I started detecting 53 years ago and was a big White's fan for many many years. That said, your statement that the 5000 (or 5900 or 6000di Pro for that matter) can "run any day with today's detectors" is only true if the targets are relatively shallow, the ground mild, and we're not talking wet salt water sand or ocean. Like the analogy of the '64 Mustang compared with today's vehicles.....sure the Mustang will get you the looks, and it may be fun to drive....at least in fair weather, and nobody stops suddenly in front of you, and you don't have to make emergency turns, and you don't mind the less reliability and extra maintenance, and you don't mind the poorer gas mileage, and the lesser performance, etc. Does that make the '64 Mustang a better overall car than a 2023 Mustang? Not hardly....in any area you wish to choose....except maybe looks! 😁 Would I still drive the '64? Sure, for fun, not as a daily driver or a trip where I wanted reliability, safety, and comfort. 

I had the opportunity to detect with some friends and a new person to our group yesterday.

We had a Deus 2 9” coil, Equinox 900, Equinox 800 both with 11” coils, Garrett AT Pro 11” coil and a Whites IDX with 950 Blue Max coil. All experienced users.

I found what I presumed to be a 7 to 8” deep US copper penny/clad dime/silver dime signal that was giving really solid audio and since I had the new 900 that Minelab America sent me, the target ID was a little better and was only 80 to 98 instead of 68 to 98 that my first 900 was likely to have shown. I was in Park 1 multi with sens on 22 of 28. The Nox 800 my friend was using was in Park 2 multi with sens on 20 of 25 and had a solid hit with target ID 25 to 30. Deus 2 read 4 to 5 bars out of 10 of iron mineralization. It was in Sensitive with sens on 90, had solid audio on the target and ID was 88 to 93. AT Pro was in Pro Zero with sens on 7 of 8. It had very broken up iron audio and no ID. The Whites IDX had sens just past the preset, disc on Rings and gave no response on the target which turned out to be a 7” US clad dime.

Just one instance on one target, but it bears out what cudamark stated and has also been proven for me anyway using the many detectors that I have owned. Sometimes, newer really is better depending on the situation. Having one detector that can hit many different size targets at different depths in different soil and beach conditions can be better than having to use a different detector for each different situation.

[Steve Herschbach]

On 5/3/2023 at 9:38 PM, Geotech said:

Jim, I guess you could say it was price, as the owners considered the company worth way more than it actually was. In the end, the owners (& dependents) didn't want to give up the cash cow.

Joe, I'll not rehash old history, other than to say in all my 50 years of work experience, the 6 years at White's has been my favorite. I wish things had turned out differently. I have no idea why Garrett bought White's, but I suspect we've seen the last of White's tech from Garrett.

As far as the Garrett purchase, a less than speculative answer might be to have kept the name out of Chinese or India counterfeiter hands. Fact is those people were already making near perfect copies in low cost facilities. All they needed was the rights to the name to be able to legitimately sell those copies in the U.S. market. Instant capability to ship with just a few decals changed. Making the buy basically eliminated a potential low cost competitor for Garrett, armed with a big name. Because otherwise as you and I know well, despite what many seem to think, the company had little of value.

People should thank Garrett for at least making sure we are not looking at dirt cheap “White’s” detectors made overseas.

[phrunt]

3 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

I found what I presumed to be a 7 to 8” deep US copper penny/clad dime/silver dime signal that was giving really solid audio and since I had the new 900 that Minelab America sent me, the target ID was a little better and was only 80 to 98 instead of 68 to 98 that my first 900 was likely to have shown. I was in Park 1 multi with sens on 22 of 28. The Nox 800 my friend was using was in Park 2 multi with sens on 20 of 25 and had a solid hit with target ID 25 to 30.

So the Deus 2 did well, the Nox 800 had an ID spread of 5 digits, the Nox 900 had an ID spread of 18.... to me the 900 did terrible and I'd want to wrap it around a tree, a 10 ID spread would be more what you would expect with a larger ID range wouldn't it?  I'm not sure how big the ID range on the 900 is, I think it has more than the Manticore.  I haven't paid much attention to the 900 as I don't want one. 

I've gone from getting direct hits on coins with 1-3 ID spread on my Nox 800 to now having 10 to 15 ID spread on the Manticore almost always up-averaging too.   It's no cherry picker 🙂

I might have been better off with the Deus 2 for someone that likes Target ID's, at the moment I've gone back to using the Nox and CTX for coins as the Manticore has me digging too many holes in places I don't want to dig holes as I want to keep access and digging too much isn't the best way to do that.

The Manticore can be my beach machine, It's likely awesome there where you don't care about holes!  Hopefully with the small coil it makes for a good nugget machine too.