White's is closing

[ivconic]

Very sorry to hear about Whites, having worked both with the parent US company and the UK one in Scotland for a number of years. Maybe the UK one will carry on in a more limited way. Guess we will have to wait and see.

Eric.

You read my thoughts!
I was thinking the similar.
Company in Scotland seems is on its own for quite some time.
I can name one particular field where they could make breakthrough and lot of money.
The detector for the veterinarians.
I saw several local veterinarian services using old White's model, produced only in Scotland (abandoned log time by mother company) for the purpose of examining cows who swallowed various rusty pieces of irons and steel.
I can't recall exact model, probably some "AF" model with very short shaft and compact coil&enclosure setup. Produced only in Scotland for years back.
Do design genuine concept for such detector, file patent and ... voila! You are back on saddle again.
Because that is very potent niche.
Bad thing about this forum is because it is public, just anybody can read this and steal the idea.

[Ferric Toes]

Very sorry to hear about Whites, having worked both with the parent US company and the UK one in Scotland for a number of years. Maybe the UK one will carry on in a more limited way. Guess we will have to wait and see.

Eric.

[eclipse]

Thats the thing about China stuff.
You can't beat them down in the price game. On the opposite - go higher - better made/better performance, better tech support etc. The virus problem can't bring down companies just like that in a few monhts. If it was an old company it must have been run poorly in the past XX years. And the downside after all is if they decide to sell who would want to spend quite a bit on this realistically the market is getting slim and if you want to step in the gmae and swing market share you need to be CREATIVE and not a RECYCLER.

[ivconic]

"...Speaking of China why don't you produce sub 100$ machines to beat down the Chinese market share..."

Whatever they did (the Chinese); they will be always steps behind genuine engineering.
Because they don't invent new things, they just copy existing ones.
And most of those copies are lowest quality made.
By now whole world is aware that products coming from China are under huge question.
You pay less, but you buy mad cat in the sack.
I don't agree with lame "Made in China" or "Covid19 cause this" excuses.
This time i tend to agree with Carl.
Seems they lost the ground, the genuine engineering.
I remember the day Carl posted that he left White's and very skim comments about the reasons.
Obviously they were in problems from much earlier on.

[eclipse]

I will throw a hypothetical plot here (not whites related but MAY apply here as well).
Build a big international company. Get 100s of online stores and retail shops to sell your product worldwide and locally. Produce a wide range of models.
Spend money in developing new ideas, not ground breaking just new and not necessarily better than the existing ones.
But just don't put these products for sale. Patenting and lab testing is more than enough. Buy old ideas from the inventor of the PI technology.
Produce 4-5 models based on the idea which are almost identical for almost a decade, okay go underwater/beach as well that counts as new. Well throw few coil patents as well gotta have those. Now the interesting part is this. During the years buy land, buy beach houses, exotic cars, some gold bars, shares in other companies like (lets be traditional - Microsoft, CocaCola etc). Invest all you can except for the main business and just don't look at what's being done in other parts of the world (Europe) + China. They will keep buying whatever products you throw. Speaking of China why don't you produce sub 100$ machines to beat down the Chinese market share. All I'm saying.. a rock solid companies run by people who know what to do with the business know how to reinvest / invent and earn even more no matter what.

[ivconic]

I love whites detectors.
whites 6000di pro sl and eagle spectrum is a legend.
spectra vx3 is a complete fiasco.

Yes, sadly Spectra was total miss.
Despite the splendid design and outlook.
Performances are under huge question.
DFX was the last White's model that really rocks.
Now with these sad news i am more than tempted to obtain one DFX in mint state for my collection.
I had one in the past and was stupid enough to sell it after a while.

[ivconic]

I had dozen of White's models so far. Mostly older models.
I loved each of those the same. Very good machines.
What i respect mostly at White's is high quality made.
I really like those square Alu enclosures with a lot of space inside.
Old models like Spectrum, XLT, DFX ... are very efficient and competitive even today on the sites.
But as they noted; it is very hard to prevail today in "modern" world where there are no rules anymore.
Number of small md manufacturers literally exploded in last 10-15 years.
Today seems just anybody is producing metal detectors.
Obviously new era is started. And good old times finished.
I will miss Tesoro and White's.
They always been in my life as some references.

[Qiaozhi]

Although this says they are "suspending manufacturing" it probably means they are done. Perhaps they will look for a buyer but I think that is a tough sell.

I've always assumed that White's would eventually fold but thought they could coast another 5 years. White's had a lot of problems, but I gotta say that in all the jobs I've had the past 40 years, the 6 with White's was by far the most fun.

Very sad to see a family firm go under, but not totally unexpected.

[kt315]

nothing new for me. The Degradation matter.

[profesor]

I love whites detectors.
whites 6000di pro sl and eagle spectrum is a legend.
spectra vx3 is a complete fiasco.

[WM6]

I also had high hopes for the other you were part of, Eric's one using CC
and a short sharp HV initiated blip pulse to quantify ground response.
That would've made an excellent prospecting machine, incorporating
Eric's new ground exclusion strategy, while maintaining maximum
target signal response.

Only Trumps "America first" is possibly able to save USA MD production.

China is counterfeiting all possible technology and even knowledge.

The End of Western supremacy on the horizon.

[eclipse]

Pulse induction wise nothing exciting has come up from whites. Having patents but no real competitive innovative products *pi* is not that great for business. Covid is just no good reason to crack. At the end there are lots of other successful manifacturers and its hard to keep the boat floating.

[6666]

Been using their gear since 1975, sad to see them go.

[Kev]

I suspect they will attempt to sell the assets, including patents. If not, the family will continue to own the rights. The only patent I believe that has any value is the one I wrote on truncated half-sine. Others either have little value, are easily circumvented, or are near expiration.

Cost of manufacturing hasn't really been an issue for White's. Their labor market is exceptionally cheap and they do most everything in-house. What has hurt them the most is sales/marketing. They hung onto the distributor/dealer model for too long, and when they finally decided to go online & big-box they just didn't have the people and structure to do it right. The second thing that hurt them was engineering turnover. It created huge gaps in products and in the ability to continue innovating.

I also had high hopes for the other you were part of, Eric's one using CC and a short sharp HV initiated blip pulse to quantify ground response.
That would've made an excellent prospecting machine, incorporating Eric's new ground exclusion strategy, while maintaining maximum target signal response.

[Carl-NC]

I suspect they will attempt to sell the assets, including patents. If not, the family will continue to own the rights. The only patent I believe that has any value is the one I wrote on truncated half-sine. Others either have little value, are easily circumvented, or are near expiration.

Cost of manufacturing hasn't really been an issue for White's. Their labor market is exceptionally cheap and they do most everything in-house. What has hurt them the most is sales/marketing. They hung onto the distributor/dealer model for too long, and when they finally decided to go online & big-box they just didn't have the people and structure to do it right. The second thing that hurt them was engineering turnover. It created huge gaps in products and in the ability to continue innovating.