Europes Largest Metal Detector Distributor Gives Minelab The Boot

[Geotech]

On 5/21/2023 at 7:49 AM, TampaBayBrad said:

It is alleged that Minelab gave IDC an ultimatum. If they wanted to continue to distribute Minelab products in Europe they should cease their partnership with Nokta and also Quest. 

This would be a major violation of anti-competitive laws. If it was in writing, some lawyers may end up gainfully employed.

[Dick Stout]

"It is alleged that Minelab gave IDC an ultimatum. If they wanted to continue to distribute Minelab products in Europe they should cease their partnership with Nokta and also Quest...."

Minelab in a nutshell....

 

[Reg Wilson]

To put it crudely,... Minelab have us by the short and curli's. 

Due to one man who with some mates in a shed in Adelaide put together a metal detector to challenge the big American boys to now being the detector company that totally dominates the scene. Impressive? Hell yes.

What is going on now though is any body's guess. It all changed with Codan take over, and how much of the original genius has been retained? Going offshore to produce cheaper would have been abhorrent to the original Minelab crew (and I knew most of them). They were not the sort of team that was out to make huge money, but to prove that good old Aussie ingenuity was as good as the best. 

All changed now I guess, and no going back to an age of challenge above making the buck. 

[Steve Herschbach]

In big business when beholden to shareholders, well, I think that anyone who thinks ethics and morality is job one has rose colored glasses. It's eat or be eaten, and if it's not outright illegal, it will generally get done if it means winning when others lose.

On 5/22/2023 at 3:45 PM, Geotech said:

This would be a major violation of anti-competitive laws. If it was in writing, some lawyers may end up gainfully employed.

Of course such things are not done in writing. They are done at night at a private dinner, or in other "he said she said" deniable ways. I've gone swimming with the sharks myself, and it is not pretty. People are best off not knowing sometimes how the sausage is made, or who is doing what to somebody else in the "boardroom bedroom." At the end of the day it is all just drama and will matter little in whether I find any gold nuggets next week or not. 

[Steve Herschbach]

It makes me think of this little gem:

Business is like other relationships. You get in bed with somebody else thinking it will be great for both parties. But sometimes you find out it's just one person getting screwed, and the other doing the screwing. The final lesson being that just like with any relationship, outside observers rarely know which party is which.

[Swegin]

26 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

The final lesson being that just like with any relationship, outside observers rarely know which party is which.

 

Just look for the one smiling.   Their the one doing the screwing. 😉

 

[phrunt]

The reason Minelab got so far ahead with gold detectors is because the competition didn't put the effort in, didn't put the $ into R&D and allowed it to happen which was a big mistake.  Where they did always remain competitive was with the VLF's and we can still see that now, Minelab doesn't dominate, they had a boost with the Equinox while others played catch up but it's a neck and neck competition with no clear winner.  So do we blame Minelab for their sky high detector prices or do we blame the lazy competitors that didn't take on the challenge? 🙂

Australia was naturally a country where making gold detectors would be something of interest with the large amounts of detectable gold in the country, a country with little to no gold or not as much interest in finding the gold with detectors is unlikely to be the determined one to make such detectors so that maybe why some manufacturers were more motivated than others in the early days of detectors.

Now these other companies are looking to play catch up after decades of Minelab having dominance.    QED in a way showed it's possible for even a small business run in a garage to make a viable detector to sell to give the market another option with reasonable performance so the jump isn't all that high to get something to market that people will buy if one man with some electronics knowledge and a 3D printer at his disposal can make a detector.

Garrett now have their very competitive detector on the market, Fisher are still working towards theirs, Nokta doing what they do best and getting onboard making a Gold Prospecting PI too.   Will Minelab always have this dominance? I don't know if they will.  Garrett's first real attempt at fighting back isn't being left in the dust so who knows, if they have a second attempt in the future they may overtake, it's possible.

It sounds to me Nokta may have some home grown motivation to make gold detectors too, Turkey is the world's nineteenth-largest producer of gold, with output of 1,594koz in 2022, up by 11% on 2021.

Turkey, which in the early 2000s was unable to produce even one gram of gold, In 2020 produced 42 tons of gold in 18 active mines despite the pandemic.

https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/world/story/gold-worth-6-billion-discovered-in-turkey-mining-to-start-within-two-years-282413-2020-12-24

[GR Guy]

Very interesting time ahead Codan/Minelab has diversified their assets across a number of areas and will be more flexible to the challenges of the global recession vs the straight detecting companies. Also given the lack of competition in gold could spell troubles for other competitors. I’m glad I live in Oz where even a top end detector can be paid off pretty quickly @$A100 a gram.

[Aureous]

6 hours ago, phrunt said:

The reason Minelab got so far ahead with gold detectors is because the competition didn't put the effort in, didn't put the $ into R&D and allowed it to happen which was a big mistake.

Minelab's big safeguard was their ravenous appetite for patents, including obtaining Govt grants to keep them running well beyond normal time limits. Their PI ground tracking, MPS and DVT patents kept all of the opposition out of the field for 2 decades. But now all of these patents have expired, the major players are slowly expanding on new designs, with Garrett and Nokta being the only ones likely to shake up Minelab in any reasonable time-frame. Fisher have a viable design to work with but FTP are (quite frankly) pathetic in their efforts to bring anything timely to market. The big player to watch for is Nokta. Their ability to produce quality at a lower price than Oz or US products will become a major nuisance for all manufacturers.....but a boon for us consumers. The next few years are gonna be interesting.... 

[cudamark]

I seriously doubt losing IDC is a major concern for Minelab in the long run. There's bound to be any number of smaller dealers willing to take the leap to expand their business. They're probably already talking behind the scenes as I type this. If not, setting up a direct mail distributor for Europe wouldn't take much, and probably make them even more money than being simply a manufacturer. In this global market, I'm actually surprised cutting out the middleman hasn't happened already.