Some interesting posts from Carl Moreland about current events over on this forum...
https://www.detectorprospector.com/profile/312-geotech/them
Says he that the family never really respected engineers over there, thought one was as good as another...A dime a dozen I believe was the statement.
They put people in charge with the same attitude who ended up chasing several pretty good engineers away or got them fired and other quality people left over the years, too.
Supposedly there was some new technology, Half Sine, Carl came up with and wrote the code for but research on that ended early before anything came of it.
He thinks there might be a little worth there if someone wants to take it over and see where it can take them but who knows.
As for their other tech much of their patented technology has already been surpassed by other companies or their patents are about to be expired so not much worth there.
He says nothing they have would be of any interest to FTP or probably anyone else, currently, as far as he can tell.
It seems they realized long ago that their clumsy distribution set up was costing them big time, too many people between the manufacturer and end user with too many markups all along the way, but their big issue was they had nobody that could successfully figure out how to fix it or if they did how to go about doing it..so it was a lack of execution more than anything.
I think they definitely had the name and a move into big box stores or direct to the consumer online like FTP did with the Patriot and other of their rejangled product lines might have been successful but I guess we'll never know, now.
When I first got into this hobby I saw there was a Whites dealer in the area that I called and talked to...some guy with another business but he sold Whites detectors on the side.
Supposedly he was a well known local hunter that was very successful over the years in this hobby.
I said I was new and looking to get into the hobby so I wanted to pick his brain.
He then immediately shut me down, never asked what or where I wanted to hunt, how much I wanted to spend...nothing.
I could have wanted a water rig, or a gold hunting unit, a PI unit or I might have been in the market for something high end but he never cared to find out.
All he kept hammering me with was I needed to buy a Prism 5.
I would find rings and coins galore he kept saying, never let up or got off that one point of that one model.
After being a very successful retail man for almost 30 years this form of selling technique really turned me off, I just assumed he had way to many of those models in stock, thanked him for his time and hung up so he could try bullying someone else into buying a model it was obvious HE wanted, or needed, to sell.
I know not all dealers were like this guy but I lost a lot of respect for this company that would let a "knowledgeable salesman" like this man represent them.
I bought another brand not long after and never looked back but maybe if I had dealt with a different and more competent dealer I could have been another happy White's guy to this day.
Carl also said the repair center, and I believe most of the other manufacturing buildings, are located on family property so if they wanted to they can shutter most of them in an instant and keep the repair center open with very little cost...and the repair center did make them some decent money so again, we'll see.
Steve Hersbach thinks the Whites name and web address could still be worth something to somebody but as to someone taking over and continuing on making any of their current product I don't think anyone believes that will happen.
To me, if all of this stuff is true, it seems like there was a lot of bad decisions, dropped balls and lost opportunities that could have continued to make this old company stay successful up to this day if they didn't stay their course and things were different but it is what it is.
Not the first company to fold that just made too many wrong moves over the years and I am sure they won't be the last.