Ugh. I just realized the trend.

Seems like there is an alarming trend with, what I will call, "traditional" metal detector manufacturers(TM's). On May 6th, Garrett will release info on it's new machine and across the forums, the general consensus is that it will be a gold machine. If that is the case and if you include the ML gold monster, gold machines are becoming more prevalent in the market place.

Why?

The gold machine market is a world-wide market, just like coin/relic is, but, there is a large "third world" need for gold machines. This is what they are trying to get a piece of.

What does this mean to the coin/relic hunter?

A few things::

1. The market, from TMs, for new coin machines will become non-existent. New innovations in that field will never come to fruition.

2. This will create a "hole" that can be filled by "non-traditional" manufacturers(NTVs).

3. Gold machines will reach a saturation point. Then TMs will be switching back to coin machines.

What does this mean to NTVs?

It means that this is their chance. We already have seen a small drip of products entering the market place however, they are struggling to get a foothold. IF NTVs work on new innovations, things that are not on the market that truly make a difference, then by the time the TMs come back to the coin/relic market, they will have to play catch-up.

I think our end of the hobby is slowly going to keep fading away...Between losing spots and hunt able locations being beat to death by current Tech it's just not worth it. Someone said much of Europe will be drastically clean down to 8-10" inches in the next decade. Still lots of good finds being made but you got to hustle.


Wish I'd gotten into water hunting about a decade ago. You can't walk down a creek or river around here without seeing a bunch of iron junk along the banks everywhere from other hunters. Still think there's a frontier on certain waterways with alot of relics, but theyll require equipment to recover due to silt/sediment or being at scuba type depths.

Lets face it Bill if their was doable gold in Pa. would have bought a gold machine eons ago...For the uniformed there is tracer gold in some rivers but too small for detectors..

Dan-Pa. Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Lets face it Bill if their was doable gold in Pa.
> would have bought a gold machine eons ago...For th
> e uniformed there is tracer gold in some rivers bu
> t too small for detectors..


That's true. This wasn't on knock on gold detectors, it was just an FYI on a trend.

Thank god I have been hunting for almost 20 years and have a nice collection of finds that make me proud to have been able to save history from rotting in the ground....Things change but we still have a few more years until it gets really bad...a new detector has to be better then what is out there to make a impact....like the impact will make...

LowBoy

TAKE A LITTLE TIME KICKBACK AND WATCH SOME OF MY DETECTING VIDEO'S BELOW ON YouTube

[www.youtube.com]

If you don’t dig it, then how are you going to know what you’re missing!
How can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!

I was trying to keep away form my tried and true "All the finds are dwindling and it's getting worst all the time" argument.

This is the first speculation I have heard or seen of it being a gold machine.

deadlift Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think our end of the hobby is slowly going to ke
> ep fading away...Between losing spots and hunt abl
> e locations being beat to death by current Tech it
> 's just not worth it. Someone said much of Europe
> will be drastically clean down to 8-10" inches in
> the next decade. Still lots of good finds being ma
> de but you got to hustle.
>
>
> Wish I'd gotten into water hunting about a decade
> ago. You can't walk down a creek or river around
> here without seeing a bunch of iron junk along the
> banks everywhere from other hunters. Still think t
> here's a frontier on certain waterways with alot o
> f relics, but theyll require equipment to recover
> due to silt/sediment or being at scuba type depths
> .


In my places, the finds have been cleaned by decades of searching.
But every year there are new finds ...
For example, this half of the cross appeared right at my test site at a depth of about 20 cm giving a clear copper signal.
I cleaned this polygon several years in a row with several models of detectors and it did not even have any iron targets...



[www.mednyobraz.ru]
[www.mednyobraz.ru]

So the finds will be for a very long time, regardless of the number of treasure hunters ...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/14/2017 05:00PM by vfp7.

Yeah soon as Hobby went Main stream with shows and YouTube Vids. it was in trouble.
Too many, not enough spots. A lot more Fun when it was a Cult Hobby. People can bash Me now it's O.K.

Its the same in the nugget hunting hobby, known gold producing areas have been thrashed over and over, however in the last couple yrs I have managed to find 17 nuggets to half grammers size in these same areas others have given up on. So its still out there. One buddy found a 15.9 gram quartz/gold specmien last sunday in a well known area of Nevada with his GB2 and it was only a couple inches deep! , it had 7.9 grams of gold in it. So bigger finds are still out there.

I am happy to see this trend in building gold detectors, we are in seriously need of some more professional machines and less entry level machines which have deluged the market in the last few yrs. I have high hopes that the CZX will come to market soon as well as the Whites Hybrid machine that has been under construction for quite awhile. These type detectors take yrs to develop before marketing, since they contain new technology.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/14/2017 09:11PM by MXT SNIPER.

This trend has been going on in the gold hunting arena for some time. Africa is the big gold market right now. The U.S. is small potatoes when it comes to selling metal detectors. The manufactures mainly market to markets like Africa (currently). I believe that the hammered site syndrome has lead to some great innovation as machines have had to become more sensitive, deeper, faster and more stable in order to keep the finds coming.Like MXT Sniper, I mostly hunt gold in Arizona. I have started 2017 with a bang with my first over an ounce day (1.5oz), my largest nugget to date, and my largest specimen at over half an ounce as well as numerous bread and butter nuggets at a gram or less. As to the new Garrett being a gold machine...nothing to get excited about if you are a serious gold guy... as it's just another VLF. VLF is not the choice of serious nugget hunters IMHO. (there are certain situations,of course)

I wouldn't count the coin market as down and out. We have some incredible new manufactures of coin machines on the scene now that weren't around just five years ago...Nok/Mak & Deus to name a couple and more European companies making their way to the fore front. I feel the American companies have stalled with any new meaningful introductions... but hope springs eternal. I don't own an American detector anymore. Hopefully, one will come along soon worth owning.

Dean

EDIT....what follows is a long post and I'm not unhappy that I wrote it, but I went back and looked at the thread I have linked below - and I think you should read this first. if you're done and you're still interested in whatever I had to say about the subject, you can read what follows

[www.dankowskidetectors.com]

MXTs - you are right - about the time it takes to bring truly new technology to the marketplace. I follow Apple pretty closely, it takes them 2 to 5 years to bring something new to the market place. The fact that they bring their stuff pretty much every year is due to the fact that they have thousands of top engineers.

Compare that to the biggest of the detector companies - that would arguably be Minelab and first Texas Products. Between the two of them I doubt that they have more than a couple of dozen engineers working full-time on metal detectors. With that size staff they have to work on projects targeting the whole market from throwaway Walmart detectors to top-of-the-line selling for thousands of dollars.

I'm not any kind of engineer, nor can I program microprocessors, but i spent about 35 years trying to decode what engineers were talking about in meetings with customers and suppliers. I have also read carefully everything I could find on forums for the last 5 years or so on the subject of detector development. That, along with the opportunity I have had to communicate with a couple of detector engineers adds up to what I think I know about progress in the field.

With the rise of digital electronics for control and signal processing in metal detectors (I'm talking about what's "inside the box" - not user displays or controls) everything changed. It used to be that to make a detector behave differently, you had to make hardware changes - originally at the simgle component level, later at the integrated circuit level. Now, you might need to do some of that, but mostly you write software or modify it. This makes it possible for folks to be "fast followers" imitating and being based on the performance model of a competitor's machine which perhaps broke new ground in performance, but writing your own software to mimic and in some cases further develop the basic concept. I'm not talking about stealing intellectual,property, like copying a circuit design or software, but figuring out what the original did and how they did it, then designing your machine to do something very much like it. All perfectly legal and ethical.

The result is detectors which equal - and often in specific details - exceed the original. I would argue that any single frequency (one freq at a time) detector falls into this group, no matter how innovative important features like user interface or mechanical design are. Examples include virtually all of the new machines introduced by European makers.

Also, In spite of being on the market for more than 10 years, simultaneous multifreakers have seen no great progress in their basic operating characteristics - Minelab's basic approach, Whites DFX platform and Fisher's CZ series.

A new development, something which breaks with past practice and starts down a whole new road of signal generation, signal processing and user interface is very rare. I don't claim to be familiar with every detector on the market, but the only example I can think of in the recent past is Minelab's new GPZ7000 which uses truly new technology. To bring something like that to market costs millions of dollars. You might add the Whites V3i to the list, being the first to give a choice of true simultaneous multi frequency or selectable frequency.

So are we stuck whith essentially what we have? I doubt it. There probably have never been so many different groups and individuals interested in designing the "next great thing".. Bulgaria was the electronics "hub" of the WarsawPact - the Russian dominated overall organization of Eastern Europe. As a result, excellent universities have turned out lots of highly qualified electronics engineers and physicists. With the defense sector collapsing and no Silicon Valley to offer them jobs some of these folk are doing detector design. Likewise Turkey is becoming a high-tech center. Russia also turns out lots of machines. Ut so far, no truly new technology has reached the market that I know of.

Here is something Keith Southern posted 2 years ago:

Ive never thought a metal detector needed Ground bal if it KNEW how to Audibly remove ground NOISE ..

I would think greater depth could be had from a machine that could DSP ground noise out of a Audio report instead of ground balincing it out it out...

Just thinking out loud...

but at times too much of a ground settingor even a exact dead on ground setting can MASK a actual target report in mineral...

Having the ability ot see all and then only remove sporadic noise could open up bad ground..

We do it Know with ground bal offset in mineral and adding dd coils to the mix...

Im thinking VLF still has a long ways to go..

I think ground bal is too enveloping too encompassing it needs to be less Agressive more analytical to soil characteristics...Its easyt o phase shift it out but how about ALTERNATIVE methods to LITE UP THE GROUND target wise by accepting the more of the ground ..

But, perhaps we shoild be careful for what we wish for. Here is a statement of the "ambition level" of one detector company. If they or their competitors ever get there, we may see great things, but may also see sites finally, truly "worked out"

The things that truly matter in detecting – super depth, discrimination to find any metal, every size, shape and regardless of how the target sits in the ground - with one sweep – easily operated, light and ergonomic – never missing a single target and never being unsure of what’s under the ground – AND QUIET. Knowing that if your detector goes over a target it will beep, and will tell you what’s there, and it will NEVER miss. That’s our goal. 100% hunted out.



.

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/2017 08:54AM by lytle78.

After re-reading the OP and giving this topic more thought I realized that the trend that the OP brings up may not go that way at all. Gold machine and coin machine innovation is not mutually exclusive. The OP lamented that the manufactures would lose focus on bringing coin machine tech to the market because they would be focused on the gold machine market. I don't think that will be the case.

The "Holy Grail" of new machine tech for both gold and coin hunting is discriminating PI. It will leave VLF in the dust. I believe it will first be introduced by Minelab...for the gold market... and then be worked in to a coin machine. It will probably be based on the GPZ platform (that's why I believe Minelab will do it first...they have the patent), in that, the GPZ is not PI but different tech and is more suitable for the addition of discrimination than PI. If they could have introduced discrimination to a PI it would have been done a long time ago. Discriminating "PI" (GPZ) will change everything in both the gold and coin hunting world. And, yes, it will be expensive! Exclusively so for most... but the ones who take the plunge will be richly rewarded just like the early adopters of the GPZ have been. How much would you pay for a discriminating PI/GPZ?

So, innovation in the gold hunting world will lead to advances in the coin hunting world. This will break the trend that the OP refers to IMO. I don't feel that it will be the other way around as coin hunting manufacturers seem to stuck dressing up the same old VLF tech in different ways and putting lipstick on a pig will never turn it in to a super model. It needs different DNA.

Dean



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/2017 02:36PM by bado1.

(there is NO anger intended or otherwise in this post, just said sternly)

Rick, you and I seem to butt heads when it comes to my over zealous expectations of what metal detector manufacturers should be doing. No doubt there has been some incredible advancements in our hobby, however, I really truly feel that there isn't nearly enough being done. I won't and more importantly, SHOULDN'T, change my mind on this point. I don't make this point lightly either, I gave it a lot of time and thought and I'm not the only one that feels this way. I have literally dozens of ideas, some simple, some not, that can be implemented into our hobby. Here is just one:

Iron/target sizing: I know the GTI2500 had a sizing feature to give an estimated size of the target...20 FREAKING YEARS AGO. Why hasn't this feature been expanded upon or even worked on? We should have seen many iterations of this tech. Imagine being able to tell the size of an iron object or any target accurately? Can anyone sit there and tell me that 20 years is not enough time to develop this technology so that it works properly?

As a paying customer, I have the right to have expectations on the things I have, and, will purchase.

Your point able being "careful what you wish" for has some truth. But here is a bigger truth. It is hard to find things anymore because SOMEONE got there FIRST. I will leave that at that.

I do see the points that you, and others make:

Manufacturers aren't inclined to risk money in R&D
There is only so much that can be done with VLF
We have made leaps and bounds over previous iterations of metal detectors

Excreta...

None of which is valid enough for me.

I have NO problem with you or anyone on this forum and I have no problem debating these "tech advancement" arguments, but, you will never change my mind on this. I see other technologies out there advancing at speeds that make the metal detecting industry look like a snail, wait scratch that, like a brick. Is there a group from a manufacturer working right now, on a Saturday to improve our hobby? I will bet the damn farm there isn't. Is there a group right now working on a Saturday working on the next iphone? Damn straight there is(please don't explain to me that the iphone makes millions vs our hobby, that wasn't the point). You don't win the race by doing the bare minimum.

Beyonder that is a Good point. I thought the Imaging was so cool when it First came out But already had a White and couldn't afford a Second Detector at the time. Some say it worked good to about 6". But a lot of trash fooled it I guess because 6" still good enough to get most Gold rings?

Beyonder. No offense taken. I share your frustration with the lack of progress. We agree totally one one thing "not enough is being done" -- except I might say, being achieved.

I don't belive however that it is due to sloth or a lack of ambition. If making a new groundbreaking metal detector technology reach the market were simple, then any one of the hundreds of eager would-be designers on the Geotek forum would be doing it.

Nokta has clever young engineers who have rapidly brought to market a whole series of innovative (but basically traditional) detectors. Likewise Mr. Loubet and XP have broken totally new ground in mechanical design and wireless technology. All this however is still not a truly new platform. Likewise the Bulgarians, the Russians and anybody else out there.

Codan (Minelab) probably have dozens of incredibly talented RF engineers. They make truly innovative communications gear. They have brought a truly new detector to market, the GPZ. It is truly NEW. It has no discrimination. Well, hey, Minelab, just work your engineers a little harder and - voila - discrimination. If it were that simple, it would be for sale today and would be a world beater. Will it come? Their competitors think so, but it might not be so soon.

Metal detecting is a tough problem in RF engineering, digital signal processing and the geology and physics of the nearly infinitely variable soil, rock and target complex.

Anyway, not minimizing the validity of your impatience, I share it. I do however have a different view as to the cause for the slow progress we are suffering from.

Until we get "one pass, in any ground, with total target ID" - let's continue to push for progress.

With respect

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/2017 03:56PM by lytle78.

Beyonder-Pa Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have literally dozens of ideas, some simple, some not, that can be implemented into our hobby.

B, I tell people, ideas are a dime-a-dozen. In most cases the detector companies have way more ideas than they have resources to develop them. I personally have more ideas than all the resources FTP has available. So does Dave. But if you have your own ideas, why not share them?

On the imaging, that's more of a gimmick feature. The same information is available in all-metal audio on just about any machine. The White's V3 took it another step forward with graphic imaging, but again it wasn't a tremendously useful feature. The fact that even Garrett seems to have abandoned the idea suggests they didn't think much of it, either.

BTW, it's Saturday, and I'm working on new stuff.

I think Codan (Minelab) is a perfect model for the problem. Their comms gear is truly "state of the art" and this is in a field where the state of the art is moving ahead by leaps and bounds.

Their detectors, on the other hand are (with the previously noted exception of the GPZ) old news. Not older news than their competitors, just old news.

So,why is that? Does Codan let their Minelab staff sit around cutting out paper dolls? I doubt it.

When 10,000 or 100,000 talented engineers are racing into the future in an area of technology - it moves fast. Codan competes in the comms area with giants in the military amd civil RF communications market - the total number of engineers working in that field must number at least in the low 1000's.

When two or three dozen engineers ( the likely total number of full-time detector engineers/designers in the world) are the only ones pushing the outside of the envelope, it goes a lot slower.

Hopeully Carl M. (Geotech) will take Sunday off - it's Easter.

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/2017 05:01PM by lytle78.

Modern detectors have become very very user friendly and very GOOD at selecting co locates in trash...

While I too wait for the next big development...I'm quite happy just going out and Hunting and enjoying this great hobby..

Use your energy on hunting and Finding sites and honing skills level ((( the single most important thing you can do is KNOW your equipment and understand it)))

Find Gear that works with you not against you and HONE HONE HONE...


Im convinced there will never be a magic stick even if new tech arrives....It will still be 90% of the finds will be made by 10% of the hunters .....ROUGH ESTIMATES...but you get out of it what you put into it..

It bothers me severely knowing there's more left in HISTORICALLY appealing sites yet I also like the Challenge to find one more piece in a sea of trash....once it becomes easy and mundane for me anyways the SPIRIT and EXCITEMENT of the quest is somehow lost in a challenging way...


Explorer New avenues...New sites...New methods...Im for the last few months on a whole new SET-UP hunt style and having the time of my life and have been rejuvenated to new Heights..Im hunting the multitude of areas I've left alone for decades..

That's the great thing about detecting ..there's always another way to approach ....outside the box thinking and even experimenting is so REWARDING...

We all hunt for the finds but the dedicated detector aficionado also hunts for the Challenge...

Go hunt go have fun ..Dream of equipment for sure but embrace what we have and enjoy our PASSION while we can..

Future generations will surely have better and more sophisticated gear...Yet I know right now I'm at an advantage better than I was a decade ago..I hope to say the same a decade from now...But I'm not waiting..I'm having FUN..

anyone can make finds in a good spot...Only a advanced operator can keep making finds once the site is dead...

when I was a kid everyone in this area had a detector it was mainstream even more than it is now..Finds were everywhere...yet as time went on from the 70s to the 80s then 90s the sites dried up and the users dropped out went on to other HOBBIES ...

But the ones who were hunting not for a hobby but passion stayed true ...

Same thing now days these TV shows and even internet charged up a whole new generation of Hobbyist..Most will never last unless they get into the mindset of the finds are secondary to the actual passion..quantity and quality are NICE!!!! but not required to enjoy the passion..

I know this post is wasted on a site such as this ..YALL KNOW this...but my feelings all the same and love to express my thoughts.


Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

I can honestly say that I will probably never live long enough to see a production model detector that detects 15" deep with solid full discrimination. I also will not live long enough to see a user friendly metal detector that can truly analyze metals to just find gold (chains included), silver, platinum, etc... Nor will I ever see a machine that is not affected by iron and really sees right through it . So, I just use what I am able to get my hands on and learn it as best as I can. Presently the CTX 3030 w a 17" coil is my go to beach machine. For me it is something that works great. For someone else not so much maybe. The GPX 5000 for me is the best relic machine, for others it's a no go. My point is that I'm better off honing my skills on a machine that fits me. My opinion to a manufacturer means nothing. It's big business, with market share, protection ones interests and staying one step above the competition. They really don't care about anyone's ideas unless they are truly earth shattering. How can they... they are in business to stay in business. I'm just happy that after 47 years of detecting I can still hunt effectively. Honestly, the only new machine that I have seen a lot of progress on is the Deus. If I had the extra cash I would buy one. Until then, I just hunt.

Keith Southern Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Modern detectors have become very very user friend
> ly and very GOOD at selecting co locates in trash.
> ..
>
> While I too wait for the next big development...I'
> m quite happy just going out and Hunting and enjoy
> ing this great hobby..
>
> Use your energy on hunting and Finding sites and
> honing skills level ((( the single most important
> thing you can do is KNOW your equipment and unders
> tand it)))
>
> Find Gear that works with you not against you and
> HONE HONE HONE...
>
>
> Im convinced there will never be a magic stick eve
> n if new tech arrives....It will still be 90% of t
> he finds will be made by 10% of the hunters .....R
> OUGH ESTIMATES...but you get out of it what you p
> ut into it..
>
> It bothers me severely knowing there's more left i
> n HISTORICALLY appealing sites yet I also like the
> Challenge to find one more piece in a sea of tras
> h....once it becomes easy and mundane for me anywa
> ys the SPIRIT and EXCITEMENT of the quest is some
> how lost in a challenging way...
>
>
> Explorer New avenues...New sites...New methods...I
> m for the last few months on a whole new SET-UP hu
> nt style and having the time of my life and have b
> een rejuvenated to new Heights..Im hunting the mul
> titude of areas I've left alone for decades..
>
> That's the great thing about detecting ..there's a
> lways another way to approach ....outside the box
> thinking and even experimenting is so REWARDING...
>
> We all hunt for the finds but the dedicated detect
> or aficionado also hunts for the Challenge...
>
> Go hunt go have fun ..Dream of equipment for sure
> but embrace what we have and enjoy our PASSION wh
> ile we can..
>
> Future generations will surely have better and mor
> e sophisticated gear...Yet I know right now I'm at
> an advantage better than I was a decade ago..I hop
> e to say the same a decade from now...But I'm not
> waiting..I'm having FUN..
>
> anyone can make finds in a good spot...Only a adva
> nced operator can keep making finds once the site
> is dead...
>
> when I was a kid everyone in this area had a detec
> tor it was mainstream even more than it is now..Fi
> nds were everywhere...yet as time went on from the
> 70s to the 80s then 90s the sites dried up and the
> users dropped out went on to other HOBBIES ...
>
> But the ones who were hunting not for a hobby but
> passion stayed true ...
>
> Same thing now days these TV shows and even inter
> net charged up a whole new generation of Hobbyist.
> .Most will never last unless they get into the min
> dset of the finds are secondary to the actual pass
> ion..quantity and quality are NICE!!!! but not req
> uired to enjoy the passion..
>
> I know this post is wasted on a site such as this
> ..YALL KNOW this...but my feelings all the same an
> d love to express my thoughts.
>
>
> Keith

The best post I've ever seen that sums up the entire current situation and MY exact feelings about being a hunter who is always trying to be better and to be challenged....I don't want it handed to me. I want my hard earned skill set to find it where others fell short. I took the chance when others didn't...I spent the time when others didn't...and I came home with what I was looking for.
I wasn't expecting the above post to come from anyone else...so "spot on" Keith that "spot on" doesn't even cover it. I hope you are well...

It bothers me severely knowing there's more left i
> n HISTORICALLY appealing sites yet I also like the
> Challenge to find one more piece in a sea of tras
> h....once it becomes easy and mundane for me anywa
> ys the SPIRIT and EXCITEMENT of the quest is some
> how lost in a challenging way...
>

Very well said!
The challenge, the accomplishment, is to pull just one more good find from a trashy/ hammered site. THAT's where the skills show... regardless of the tech.
Thanks, Kieth.

Dean

A lot of these gold machines are dirt/relic machines also. Plus..... some of the NEW companies getting in the market started out doing just relic machines. We've also had an interest in water proof machines. It is of course a boom in third world gold......... but also as these dirt locations dry up with more limiting where we can hunt we as hunters look to other areas of the hobby where a detector can be used. These nitch areas ....... where gold or micro gold can be found.

Dew

It's more hunting time i need, family life at the moment restricts it, i've got several hundred acres of hunting grounds, some i got permission for years ago and i've not set foot on them yet!