Vintage Detecting Forum

I was wondering did this model have the two tone I.D. like the king cobra? And was this a newer model than the King Cobra? I know they are rare as hen's teeth! Would probally bring a good dollar if found for sale.

The Thunder Stick came before the King Cobra, but was very similar. Both had notch and two tones, but the King Cobra has a toggle switch for switching between all metal and disc modes and has notch accept while the Thunder Stick only had notch on or off. The Thunder Stick also has a battery check button. Same housing and pole configuration and 15 khz frequency. Not a lot of Thunder Sticks were made. Thunder Stick faceplate is the top one in photo, King Cobra bottom. Photo shows differences.

First, let me give a 'Thank You' to JB for responding with control face photos of the Thunder Stick and King Cobra. Both models are touch to come by, especially the very short-lived Thunder Stick, and I am sure that due to component failure and/or excessive wear-and-tear of those that are in service, they will fade from the scene soon. Heck, they almost have!

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Harold,ILL.
I was wondering did this model have the two tone I.D. like the king cobra?

Two tone, similar to the King Cobra.

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Harold,ILL.
And was this a newer model than the King Cobra?

It was older. Actually, it was the starting model for Gold Mountain Technologies that really had very little production during the ownership change and start of a brief history for that company. It's not the same as the original Gold Mountain, which had gone out of business. I met Bill Mahan Jr. at a Texas Council of Treasure Clubs show when he was walking around showing his new concept detector, the Thunder Stick. His Dad is the one who originally had D-Tex Electronics which had gone out of business earlier. Bill Jr. bought some of the parts and equipment from the old D-Tex company that were being sold off, and with the new Gold Mountain name he came up with the Thunder Stick.

This was a simple-to-use slow-motion/quick-response detector that seemed to almost duplicate the performance we had with the Tesoro models. It happened to work at 15 kHz which was also the unusual frequency Tesoro used for their Golder Sabre Plus, which also featured the two-tone Notch Discrimination. Matter of fact, in a one-on-one discussion with him he told me that he actually kind of copied the Tesoro design. Anyway, Bill Jr. was trying to get some interest in this 'new' model and some funding to get this new detector company up and running. He didn't appear to be very successful.

But at the same period of time there was a fellow who had just parted company with Garrett Electronics (now Garrett Metal Detectors), Jim Breckenridge, and he acquired Gold Mountain Technologies from Bill Mahan. Very, very briefly did I see any marketing for the Thunderstick, but the King Cobra was quickly introduced. It was also a much too close copy of the Tesoro circuitry which most figured would bring about about a legal action from Tesoro. The King Cobra sold pretty well, considering the short life GMT had, as did the GMT-1650 which was also named the Cobra. The same detectors.

They tried a poor attempt at a gold nugget hunting detector, lacking some needed controls, and named it the Gold Scorpion, in an attempt to cut in on sales of the Garrett Scorpion Gold Stinger. It didn't. One more model was brought out, a low-end model, but by then they were floundering terribly. Distributors, and I was one, couldn't establish any dealers because due to pricing, and mainly because they needed quick cash flow and cut a deal to sell to the biggest volume detector dealer. That, alone, kept any 'regular' dealer from wanting to try and carry the GMT line because they couldn't match the discounted price they were selling for.

Soon, GMT was another dead-in-the-water detector producer. I tried to order in a Thunderstick but was told they were not making them. There had only been a few (whatever that term meant) and the Cobra, King Cobra and GMT-1650 were the models they were focused on. Other than the Thunderstick I tried a the Texas Council show, I never saw another one and they weren't available, even to a Distributor.

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Harold,ILL.
I know they are rare as hen's teeth! Would probally bring a good dollar if found for sale.

Yes, they are rare, but I have bought, sold, and traded several GMT models, mainly King Cobras, since about 1993 and found that many of them had some serious quality control issues. A lot of search coil failures, and many with poor calibration, and actually not able to be calibrated to function due to the use of sloppy tolerance components or other design flaws.

I'm not sure how much your unit might be worth, but i will say I am often surprised what some folks pay for older detectors on the big web-bidder site.

If it works, use it and enjoy it. Remember, metal detecting is really all about getting out and having fun. I liked my Cobra and GMT-1650 models the best of them all, but I'm sure a Thunderstick or King Cobra, if working properly, can still provide ample enjoyment due to their light weight and satisfactory performance.

Monte

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"Your Eyes, the ONLY 100% accurate form of Discrimination!"

Stinkwater Wells
Monte V. Berry Sr.
monte@stinkwaterwells.com
(503)481-8147
My main use favorites in order by brand:
White's
MXT Pro w/6½",
VX3 w/950
Tesoro
.. Replacement coming ..
Teknetics
Omega w/5½x9¾
G2 w/5" DD

Thanks for the reply Monte. They must be fairly durable as there seems to be alot of them left out there still working. That also goes for Compass detectors as all I hear is the scanners meters always break,But you see alot of them for sale that look to be used alot and still good working order. Speaking of Compass what do you think is the deepest scanner on coins the XP-PRO?

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Harold,ILL.
Thanks for the reply Monte. They must be fairly durable as there seems to be alot of them left out there still working.

Possibly the most 'durable' of the discontinued models I know of that still seem to keep working well have been White's Classic series and the XL Pro. Also a lot of Tesoro Bandido's and Silver Sabre's. As for the Gold Mountain Technologies models, I don't see them come up that often. When I have, and have had the opportunity to check them out myself or contact a buyer to get their opinions of what they purchased, it hasn't been all that earth-shattering. Some work, but many don't work that well. GMT also had a lot of coil issues toward the end of their short life, and a couple of models that were just terrible, even when new and out-of-the-box. Quality Control for what it was, really went down as they were going under.

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Harold,ILL.
That also goes for Compass detectors as all I hear is the scanners meters always break,But you see alot of them for sale that look to be used alot and still good working order.

Like all models I see some advertised, and the seller says they are in good working order, but .....

I don't see that many of them, and I would bet that many we see surface on the classifieds is making a return appearance as they get bought-and-sold fairly regular. Quality? That was an issue at Compass when they were designing and producing the Scanner series, and not all the fault of the design engineer, John Earle. John designed them, including the original Coin Scanner, then when Tek/Bounty went under they got George Payne to redesign a Coin Scanner and use AA batteries instead of the three 9V batteries. The redesigned Coin Scanner Pro was sort of an enhanced Bounty Hunter as they seemed to share a similar concept, and I think George stated that somewhere once.

When I left Compass they were up to Rev. H on the XP Pro, and Revision H is a long way from an initial Rev.A! Many detectors don;t have a revision, and some might have two or three, but 'H!" That would represent 7 revisions or changes from the initial product, and even those revised board needed some handy work of adding extra components to make other little alterations.

Compass was also having a lot of search coil failures at that time, with many 6" coils going bad as well as the stock 8" coils. A bad capacitor was the main problem.

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Harold,ILL.
Speaking of Compass what do you think is the deepest scanner on coins the XP-PRO?

I saw a lot of variance all of the Scanners at first. Way too many internal trimmers cause a lot of problems. The first ones were often hotter than many latter issues I used because they kind of cut the sensitivity back in part to hep deal with some of the issues they were having. I liked the 'vari-filter' Scanners more than the George Payne Coin Master Pro, but his design usually has fewer problems.

The best-performing Scanner I had was a Gold Scanner Pro and that was due to having the manual GB control. I had one when I left Tesoro, but I actually had better all-around success back then using my GMT-1650 and it out-performed the Gold Scanner Pro due t the fine-tune adjustment in the iron range.

Monte

---

"Your Eyes, the ONLY 100% accurate form of Discrimination!"

Stinkwater Wells
Monte V. Berry Sr.
monte@stinkwaterwells.com
(503)481-8147
My main use favorites in order by brand:
White's
MXT Pro w/6½",
VX3 w/950
Tesoro
.. Replacement coming ..
Teknetics
Omega w/5½x9¾
G2 w/5" DD

Thanks for the reply Monte. That was a great post with awesome information! I always wanted to try a XL-PRO Whites as I have tried most around that time. They say the analog meter is one of the best ever! They must be good as nobody gets rid of them!