Fisher

Did I read some where that fisher was gonna come out with a new detector?...doesn't much matter....I can't see myself using anything but a CZ

Many on this Forum want F Texas to succeed. The Manta is eagerly looked forward to. As for any other detector? I'm sure they are working on something. The Equinox did not make other detectors extinct, but it set the bar for performance vs price. Other detector companies will have to be competitive to be successful against it. Releasing repackaged technology days could be extinct. I'm curious as I'm sure others are just what will be released by those other companies down the road. A discriminating PI would be a hell of a great product. There is a Manta thread below somewhere down there.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/28/2018 09:38AM by goodmore.

Several iterations of Pulse Induction machines are in the works. As did Minelab with their new Equinox detectors Fisher realized several years ago that multi-freq is the future so they are working on replacements for your CZ as well.

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In a democracy, it is difficult to win fellow citizens over to your own side, or to build public support to remedy injustices that remain all too real when you fundamentally misunderstand how they see the world.

New detector introductions today by any manufacturer have to deal with a huge shift in marketplace realities. We are seeing dramatic drops in detector prices. These are a result of the overall metal detector market being very weak.

First Texas led the way by launching their factory-direct Ameritec line of 3 machines chosen from the Fisher, Teknetics and Bounty Hunter brand lines and aggressively re-priced as Ameritek Minuteman, Liberator and Patriot. They followed it up with the special offer on their top of the line machines, the F75 and T2 - packaging them with their new PI Pinpointer and offering them as the F57+ and T2+ at greatly reduced prices.

Minelab’s decision to price the Equinox at record low levels for a multifrequency waterproof machine cemented the new price and performance realities

Nobody would bother to introduce a high priced, single frequency, non waterproof detector in today’s market. First Texas saw the handwriting on the wall and started multifrequency platform development several years ago - so far, no product has emerged, but they were starting with a clean sheet of paper. Their work continues and they have stated that several new platforms will emerge - but no dates given.

The PI machine - currently called Manta - was developed by Alexandre Tartar in France over 10 years. Carl Moreland at First Texas saw info on it in his Geotech forum in 2015 or so and after they determined that the thing was real and had great potential, they bought the whole technical package and hired Alexandre a year ago. Release of a finished product is expected within a year - maybe sooner.

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold

The biggest question...can fisher release new tech before they are no more?

First Texas is a closely held company - they have no outside shareholders to answer to. They make no public announcements of sales and profits. As long as Tom Walsh and any partners he has are satisfied with the return on their investment, they should have no problem staying in business. This year they moved into a huge new facility in El Paso which they own. They continue to spend big bucks on Marketing at all levels, they show at all relevant international product expos as well as the ones here in the US. Check the Facebook pages for their marketing team - they are getting a lot of miles of international travel.

The metal detector business is slow right now. The African gold detector business which was in the gold rush mode is now in the equipment replacement mode. Minelab’s introduction of the Equinox has probably saved their US sales performance which prior to last fall, was probably pretty slack. Detector prices will probably never recover the dizzy heights which ML reached with the CTX for the hobby market and the GPZ for nugget hunting. The new realities are a need to deliver increased performance for price and probably to get much closer to the customer than the traditional distribution model has allowed. This is new territory for all metal detector manufacturers.

There are three significant US companies, Whites, Garrett and First Texas. In the 70’s there were dozens. Nothing lasts forever.

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold

Yep, good points. Garrett has no worries. I'd be concerned on the other two but we all hope for the best! Fisher and Tek are dear to my heart. *crossing fingers*

lytle78 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> First Texas led the way by launching their factory
> -direct Ameritec line of 3 machines chosen from th
> e Fisher, Teknetics and Bounty Hunter brand lines
> and aggressively re-priced as Ameritek Minuteman,
> Liberator and Patriot. They followed it up with t
> he special offer on their top of the line machines
> , the F75 and T2 - packaging them with their new P
> I Pinpointer and offering them as the F57+ and T2+
> at greatly reduced prices.

Yep I think Fisher is doing just fine with their lower end products. For every actual beach machine I see on the beach I see 10 bounty hunters owned by a tourist that is just having fun trying out metal detecting. That's what sells a lot.

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Nox600, CTX, CZ21, Excal II and White's DF with 920i stealthscoop...I live and hunt at the beach in Wilm NC

Hundreds of thousands of units every year.

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold

First Texas (FT) has long believed that having a model in every niche and in every distribution chain was the key to building and keeping a profitable Metal Detector business. They succeeded in the past 15 years or so in introducing a full range of models in each of their 3 brands, Fisher, Teknetics and Bounty Hunter. In some cases these were relabeled twins, in many of the cases they were complete different machines. They shared a small number of common “platforms” and each model was developed for a specific task or market niche. Car makers do exactly the same thing.

Now the marketplace has changed - at least at the “enthusiast” level. Multifrequency has reached the “masses” thanks to ML and the Equinox. FT has seen this coming and is developing accordingly - but ML beat them to the post. But Minelab's success has left Minelab with a one model lineup for the present (not counting specialized Gold detectors). New unit sales of the 705 and CTX can’t be very hot. Their next move will be interesting.

FT is getting ready to launch their first PI detector in decades - the result of Carl Moreland spotting a promising new development in France and FT being smart enough to get over the “not invented here” bias and scooping it up as the basis for their PI development. Meanwhile their new lineup of single and multifrequency machines are busily being developed - and it will be a “lineup” - you can be sure of that - it’s the heart of their business model. Heck, even the beach PI is already described as the first in a series of increasingly attractive special purpose detectors - nugget huntin, you bet - specialized PI inland relic machines, they’d be crazy not to - maybe even a PI deep silver hunter just for the US market.

They are busy - what we will see and when we will see it - nobody knows - perhaps not even them - development and testing sometimes lead to a “stillborn” project.

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/28/2018 07:12PM by lytle78.

I've been waiting for Fisher to come out with a beach detector for well over a decade.

I'm still waiting.

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Badger - hopefully you won’t have to wait much longer - but I hope you want gold, because the Manta (or whatever Fisher names it ) is a GOLD FINDING MACHINE. It is highly optimized for finding gold jewelry at the beach. Later Fisher PI developments will no doubt be optimized for for other jobs - deep relics, gold nuggets, maybe even a specialist park hunting deep silver hunter, First Texas is known for filling every niche in the market with a machine neatly tailored for that place in the market - who knows.

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/28/2018 11:54PM by lytle78.

I've been following the Manta thread since the beginning. I'm prepared to buy one if it's not too expensive. I hope we don't have to go through what we did with the Equinox.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/29/2018 12:06AM by Badger in NH.

Too expensive? I think those days are over. I suspect it will be priced in line with what it is expected to do - change the whole scene for finding gold in the seashore.

As far a going through what we had to do with the Nox... First Texas detectors are selling well in what is a weak market. They have no history of long, drawn out pre introductions. On the other hand they suffer from folks like me doing Kremlinology (look at up) on every emerging scrap of information - not their fault!! Lol

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/29/2018 12:13AM by lytle78.

lytle----Where you getting all this dope (info)?? You got "inside info", or is all this just your opinion(s)?----I know, I know--like even you said--everybodys got one (opinion that is)!------Hey, you're supposed to be enjoying yourself on this travelling trip you're on---relax, relax, relax!!---Or are you back home already? -------"Kremlinology"???-----Now where'd I lay that blasted Websters???-------I'm razzin yah bud---think what I'd do if I didn't like ya!-----Keep up the good work--I actually find it quite "interesting".-----------Del

Just movin on down the road. In PA at the moment. Off to NYC for a month on Friday - thanks to a friend of a friend rented an apartment for a month - never spent time there, but in spite of the currently lousy east coast weather hope that the wife, the cat and i will have fun.

As far as the ‘Kremlinologist”, it’s mostly due to the fact that I “cracked the code” on the Manta Project about the same time as Carl Moreland did. Being a long time follower of Eric Foster, I figured that Alexandre knew what he was talking about, but when Mike Scott at FT answered a routine inquiry of mine with the news that Alexandre was now one of the happy gang in El Paso (while remaining in France) - pretty much all the rest was given. 15,000 hours is what Alexandre says he has spent studying what has gone before in pi detectors and working to further the state of the art..

The FT gang are really nice folks. They provide good jobs at fair pay in a place where lots of companies have figured out that there are plenty of smart folks who will work hard. Tom, the boss is a guy who has made a lot out of a little, I was fortunate enough to visit the plant a coupe of years ago and met Tom and the rest. As I went around and introduced myself to the folks, they uniformly asked if I had met Tom.. I said yes, I had just met him. Without exception, the next comment was - “He’s a wonderful man”.

I have worked for major corporations and a few small businesses. Most of them OK. I never heard that about a CEO before.

Put me down as a fanboy if you will, but I root for FT. Our hobby is a strange one - half science and engineering - half mystery. I like it that way.

I like my IDX Pro, I am impressed with my NOX 600, I have a DeepTech Vista Gold Gain, and an old CZ6, Since I retired a few years ago, I have bought, used and sold on probably 25 different detectors - including several from Compass, Whites, Minelab, Treasure Baron and Tesoro - all have been an education. Lots of great machines out there.

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/29/2018 01:48AM by lytle78.

Rick----Enjoy your trip & have safe travels.-----My wife & I had what we called a "once in a lifetime" trip back there several years ago.---We visited a lot of the eastern states & ended up spending that winter in FL--had an enjoyable time except for that TRAFFIC!----I was driving a 32' m.h. & towing a Jeep Cherokee.--Never had a driving incidence at all though except one Sunday coming out of a church in FL & in several lanes of traffic a kid almost wiped us out in the Jeep.----I've driven m.h.'s towing vehicles all over most of the states for years--but no more--too old.----We store our R.V. in CA now-a-days & spend winters there.-------Anyway---yeah, I'm rooting for FT also!-------Balls, I wish the best for ALL the detector manufacturers--without them we would have no (detecting) hobby.------Del

Thank Del,

If metal detectors were high tech phones or tablets, guess I’d be a Market Analyst - maybe I’d get to fly to fancy conferences and such. but no, the entire value of all the metal detector manufacturers in the world is probably less than the average coffee shop chain.

Still, I find it fun to think about these small businesses and how they try to stay relevant in this small nook in the economy. I was a subcontracts and contracts administrator for 30 years or so. Supplier and subcontractor qualification and market analysis was a part of what I did. The habit kind of hangs on! Lol

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 05/29/2018 01:39PM by lytle78.

Price, customer service, depth, unmasking, build quality, weight/balance, waterproof, ability to function in saltwater, coil selection, and proper target identification....all possible factors in metal detector success. Foreign manufacturers have really shook up the market with overall value.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/29/2018 05:18AM by Arkansas.