Minelab Price Increases

[phrunt]

 Or they are trying to recoup some of the losses of profits they expected from the GPX 6000 with poor sales largely due to Africa's collapse along with quality issues, just sit there for a few moments and ponder how much profit they've lost on that detector, how many people have had one or multiple coils replaced from cracking or noise issues and they lasted well over a year before they were resolved in the peak sales period for a new detector when it first comes out, how many have sent 1.5 years' worth of GPX's in for the EMI fix including in countries outside of Australia which is done by 3rd party repair agents that are going to be far higher costs than them doing it themselves, some countries they are just replaced as they have no board level repairs even though they tried damage comtrol by minimising the problem by downplaying it and outright dismissing it for a long time, not to mention the endless flooding of the Equinox models and broken ears along with other faults with it including the shafts that many early adopters including myself had replaced.      They've had "performance is everything" as their slogan for a reason, they focused on that far too much, yes performance is everything but paying customers also demand quality for their 8 to 10 AUD grand detectors.  The GPZ is fine, the GPX failed in this regard.

They have dropped the ball with quality, that's unquestionable and I have yet once seen any shareholder report even mention any of these issues, some shareholders that are just moneybags and do don't practice due diligence are just blind to their woes and have paid the price for that with their massive share price falls, they rode the wave of the success of the Equinox, it's been a junker since.

I really like Minelab detectors, that's a fact, but I struggle to understand their way of running a business.

Inflation in Malaysia, where your Minelab detector is "born", their manufacturing costs are not an issue, shipping costs are greatly improved, maybe the big cats in Australia are taking too much of the pie (see investor reports and judge yourself, they break down wage packages) ? R&D is hard to know, but their profits suggest it's not as big as some may think.

The annual inflation rate in Malaysia slowed to 1.9% in September 2023 from 2% in the previous month, below market forecasts of a 2.2% rise. It was the lowest inflation rate since March 2021, with prices of food rising the least in 19 months (3.9% vs 4.4% in August), while transport prices edged down 01% after being flat in August. Additionally, prices rose softer for both furnishings, household equipment & maintenance (1.5% vs 1.7%) and restaurants & hotels (4.4% vs 4.7%), while housing inflation was steady (at 1.6%). Meantime, prices of clothing & footwear inched up 0.1% after being flat in August, while that of miscellaneous continued to rise (2.5% vs 2.4%). At the same time, communication prices fell further (-3.7% vs -3.7%). Core consumer prices, which exclude volatile items of fresh food and administered cost, increased 2.5% year-on-year, the same pace as in August, the softest rise since May 2022. On a monthly basis, consumer prices edged up 0.1% after a 0.2% gain in August. source: Department of Statistics, Malaysia

[Aureous]

10 hours ago, phrunt said:

Well, currently they don't dominate the VLF's at all, Garrett I believe has a better gold prospecting VLF with their 24k than the GM1000, it even has a nice concentric coil option which is increasingly rare.   The Equinox I think is a better prospecting unit than the GM1000 and personally can't think of any reason I'd use my GM over my Nox for prospecting.

I agree completely....as I said, the 'writing is on the wall' and they don't seem to see it. As Steve said, nothing improves flagging sales better than a new model....and they aint doing it. A new GPZ doesnt have to be wholly new tech to improve performance. It just needs to be lighter, with better coil options, an actual real-world voltage to coil gain control and improved bias coding for big, deep gold and/or small gold. To achieve this with an already proven circuit would be a cheap'ish achievement. Maybe add Geosense as well... The more they dither, the closer Nokta get to the prize. In a way, I hope Nokta does kick the legs out from under Minelab with their new prospecting PI project....its going to be the only way they abandon their ridiculous $10K+ pricing agenda.  Being an Aussie, of course I want Minelab to succeed, but not at the cost of their loyal customers wallets.

[Aureous]

8 hours ago, phrunt said:

I really like Minelab detectors, that's a fact, but I struggle to understand their way of running a business.

Simon, your statement echoes through most of us. Sometimes I shake my head so much I get dizzy ?

[jasong]

If we are gonna pay the piper then I'm hoping Minelab is moving to some sort of automated prospecting type packages, specifically drone mounted. Drone mounted GPR is real and a thing already in the exploration industry for example, so some things are now possible that were extremely difficult or impossible 10 years ago. Most of this stuff isn't useful for say finding 1 gram nuggets, or recreational detecting though. It's larger scale, lower resolution, bigger picture. But automated. Then you can come back with a 6000 or 7000 or whatever and do the finer scale, higher resolution work.

Minelab has some stuff that seems like they are working on ideas like these already, but limited mostly to countermine military tools. Anyone looked at their STMR Array? Wouldn't be hard to make a smaller adaptation of that to satisfy the drag coil crowd. 

I keep hoping we are moving from the coil-on-a-stick model. Probably not though. But who knows. But if they are marketing "pro-grade" equipment and charging pro prices, then I feel it's time to give us actual professional exploration tools and not recreational equipment. 

 

 

 

[phrunt]

Now that looks like it could justify the 10 grand price! 

[Gold Catcher]

I enjoy the swinging and hiking. Also, this sort of heavy machinery would only work in open terrain and with large coarse gold deposits. Not many places in the Sierras, nor in any mountain terrain for that matter, that I can think of where this would be of any use, not even for the "professionals"...Australia perhaps. But even if this would work one day, if I then just had to press a button to find gold I might loose interest in prosepcting ?

[dig4gold]

17 hours ago, phrunt said:

The Manticore isn't really a giant step over the Nox I don't think although I'd much rather it than a Nox 900 and, in a few ways, prefer my 800 over the Manticore. 

Minelabs business model is not to release upgraded "technology" in new release models in really giant steps. But to do it a tiny step at a time to milk more money from customers with each "new" release. Mining the miners. Take a look at the GP Extreme through to the GPX 5000. Pretty much the same platform with small improvements to each unit but a hefty top end price per "new" detector. We were lucky that the coils were interchangeable. Not like now.

D4G

[jasong]

1 hour ago, Gold Catcher said:

I enjoy the swinging and hiking. Also, this sort of heavy machinery will only work in open terrain and with large coarse gold deposits. Not many places in the Sierras that I can think of where this would be of any use, not even for the "professionals"...

Re-read my post. A person doesn't use the kind of tools I'm talking about for finding nuggets directly. You use large scale, low resolution tools to cover large swaths of land to find indicators, then go in with a 6000 or 7000 and do the higher resolution work. And not everywhere is the Sierras. 

I posted the STMR only as an example that Minelab is working on stuff other than coil on a stick paradigms, things which over the last few years now might be adaptable to something more mobile like drone whereas not long ago it was thought impossible. GPR already is being used on drones. Other stuff too. If they have the bulk designed for military applications, my point is they might be able to do some sort of drone based consumer product as well. 

There are tons of examples you can use this equipment to find nuggets by proxy, some of which I'm not at liberty to disclose at the moment. But for example you can use drone mounted GPR to search for buried paleoplacer and paleoriver channels (you are finding the gravel/boulders, not the nuggets), then use that map to go in with a detector or even an excavator. Saving years of boots on the ground surveying/test holes/exploration. Similar techniques abound with other sensor arrays (spectral, radiation, magnetic, etc) which a creative and knowledgable prospector can apply in new ways.

You can use these survey techniques to find gold, or almost any other mineral, limited only by your creativity and ability to find new ways to correlated specific types of survey data to indicators or minerals of interest. I'm not guessing, I'm saying this based on real experience, most of which unfortunately at the moment is under NDA but I may detail further in the future if I can. 

This is the direction the future of general prospecting is going. Most people here think detectors have reached maturity - I'm saying with first hand experience that there are still ways to find both more gold as well as other minerals with some of this tech that is now available. If Minelab is charging pro prices and marketing as pro equipment, I'd like to see them offer some of these at a consumer level now. Those who just want to "swing and hike" are free to do so in any event with what exists already.