Tesoro is this the end.

[user 11578]

Looks like it could be the end of Tesoro Detectors...they have laid of there entire staff, sad news they have been around for such a long time.

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/tesoro/589971-tesoro-laid-off-all-factory-staff.html#post5951316

 

[Diablo]

That is sad. I still use my Tesoro 'Diablo' and is great to use, very light, sensitive, and easy to handle in tight spots. Great unit to teach basic skills to beginners. Also a good back up for the 4500.
I was lucky to win mine through "Gold, gem and Treasure" magazine back in the 1980's
Cheers
Diablo

 

[user 11578]

Is that were you got your user name from Diablo, that would have been a ripper of a prize to win back then to mate.

 

[Diablo]

It certainly was, picked it up from David Bishop detectors in Wodonga. David took some photos for the publicity, gave me some directions for areas around Rushworth and detecting was never so easy. Especially after swinging a Goldseeker15000 all day. Sold the 15000 and the Diablo became attached to my right arm.
The ten inch elliptical is good for treasure hunting,,,,, it's the 7 inch that is the killer on small stuff and it is waterproof:the coil only.
I still love my 4500 though! But it is nice to have a good spare detector in the boot all the time,,just in case!
Cheers
Diablo

 

[user 11578]

Thanks for sharing your story Diablo :Y: the little Tesoro Detectors will still be around for quite sometime I hope, they are very tough little beepers. ickshovel:

cheers and happy hunting

 

[PhaseTech]

It certainly was, picked it up from David Bishop detectors in Wodonga. David took some photos for the publicity, gave me some directions for areas around Rushworth and detecting was never so easy. Especially after swinging a Goldseeker15000 all day. Sold the 15000 and the Diablo became attached to my right arm.
The ten inch elliptical is good for treasure hunting,,,,, it's the 7 inch that is the killer on small stuff and it is waterproof:the coil only.
I still love my 4500 though! But it is nice to have a good spare detector in the boot all the time,,just in case!
Cheers
Diablo

David Bishop was one of the nicest guys in the industry. Sad I never got to meet him.

 

[Adrian ss]

Tesoro made very nice and practical detectors that worked great but they did not keep up with the times and the competition. I still have my Sand shark and LST that I purchased from David Bishop. He was a fantastic bloke and who kept Tesoro alive in Australia for many years but after his wife passed away he slowed down and handed the reigns to Paul Knee who did his best to keep the brand alive in here. Tesoro played a dirty trick on him and that was pretty much the end of Tesoro in Aust.
I met David Bishop once and that man had a handshake that could crush a brick. A very nice bloke who could repair any Tesoro fault and who was loaded with prospecting knowledge. The Industry lost a legend when David passed away.

 

[Guest]

I brought my first garret though david bishop gtx 350 then intoduce to another nice man of phill steirens of Adelaide both great men of the industry and very hard to replace , i had mates that used tesoro all of life i pretty lucky i think to be growing up in that kind of people , im always glad to competition around it keep others honest

 

[Goldpick]

Tesoro made very nice and practical detectors that worked great but they did not keep up with the times and the competition. I still have my Sand shark and LST that I purchased from David Bishop. He was a fantastic bloke and who kept Tesoro alive in Australia for many years but after his wife passed away he slowed down and handed the reigns to Paul Knee who did his best to keep the brand alive in here. Tesoro played a dirty trick on him and that was pretty much the end of Tesoro in Aust.
I met David Bishop once and that man had a handshake that could crush a brick. A very nice bloke who could repair any Tesoro fault and who was loaded with prospecting knowledge. The Industry lost a legend when David passed away.

I was with Phil (former Garrett distributor) at his home repairing my Infinium when he recieved a call from Paul Knee, he didn't even know that he had lost the Tesoro distributorship until I informed him that another shop in Bendigo was claiming to be the new distributor. I guess that's business for you, though as you mentioned Tesoro never really recovered here after that little episode.

Pity, as my first half decent coin detector was the Vaquero, and the experience learnt from that detector has held me in good stead till this day, especially on deciphering information from tones. VDI screen based detectors really killed off the market for beep and dig detectors, along with a new generation of users preferring more user friendly and feature packed platforms. Tesoro did produce the Deleon and Cortes with screens and TID's, for some reason they were never really that successful. I suspect they simply weren't price competitive against other similar or higher specced platforms at the time.

The Cazador naming contest was probably one of the first indications that things weren't good at Tesoro, no new detector came to fruition and the death of founder Jack Gifford further complicated things.

I still have the Tejon though it rarely gets out these days - should really brush the cobwebs off and give it a run one day.

Here'a brief rundown of Tesoro's history if interested:
http://www.tesoro.com/info/about/

...and also a link for PDF's of the original flyers for most of their detectors:
https://www.treasurelinx.com/tesoro.html

At least there is one detector that can go down in history as being a bit of a collaborative effort between Tesoro US and Oz, and that was the rare Lobo derived Tesoro Dingo. Besides the naming, I think the only real differences were changes to the GB range to suit our more mineralised ground.

 

[Adrian ss]

Purchased a used Mojave and am awaiting delivery
Price was right and the machine has an ok reputation, so thought I would give it a try out.
Unfortunate about Tesoro.
I have still not received a reply to my email to them and from what I have read it seems that they are not answering anybody. That is not doing them any good when it is an extremely simple matter to reply to an email..

Keep up that attitude and even their hard core fans will find Tesoro fading from memory

 

[Goldpick]

With the uncertainty on Tesoro warranties, you would expect there to be some dealers clearing stocks at discounted prices. Australian dealers still seem to be listing them at full price whereas US multi-line dealers like Kellyco have them listed in their clearance section at slashed prices. Interestingly they still supposedly offer them with a lifetime warranty.

The Mojave looks like an interesting little detector, will be interested to see your thoughts on it.

 

[the duck]

Tesoro got hoodwinked by the person claiming to have dealers right around Australia, i have had 5 models over the years great machines never had a problem with any of them but alas they are finished now

 

[Adrian ss]

With the uncertainty on Tesoro warranties, you would expect there to be some dealers clearing stocks at discounted prices. Australian dealers still seem to be listing them at full price whereas US multi-line dealers like Kellyco have them listed in their clearance section at slashed prices. Interestingly they still supposedly offer them with a lifetime warranty.

The Mojave looks like an interesting little detector, will be interested to see your thoughts on it.

I received the Mojave yesterday. It is typical tesoro. Light weight and no frills.
Gave it a try out this morning.

A depth monster it is not but never the less it can find our Aussie coins at approx 8 or 9 inches in dry sandy ground which is ok for a 6 inch concentric.
The discrim works well and can be set to give a signal that is fairly accurate on steel bottle caps without loosing sensitivity to gold and silver.
I tried the two GB modes (High & Low minerals) and did not notice any change in depth between the two settings.
Neither mode could knock out heavy iron mineralisation, so I would not bother trying to use the Mojave in the gold fields, it is a coin and relic machine with performance similar to the Compadre.
There is no pinpoint mode but I found the small coil to be pretty accurate at pinpointing.
Setting the disc above foil will loose small low grade gold. I found half way between iron and foil to be about right but if you want to cherry pick your targets then you can set the disc wherever you like.
There is no volume control and the vol can be quite loud so use a set of HPs with vol control.
The Mojave is a nice little detector that you can keep in the car for those random quicky detects. It would be a great first detector for the kids.
If you already own a Compadre or any other Tesoro vlf machine then I doubt that you will need the Mojave unless you want absolute simplicity with good performance.....Don't race out and try to compare the Mojave to an Equinox or Deus or LST or Gold Bug . They are in a different league.
I like it and it found a nice sil ring and 25 cents this morning in about 15 minutes.

 

[Adrian ss]

Okay so I took the Mojave out for another run this morning to give the 2 GB ranges a proper try-out.

I feel that I have to rate this detector better than th beginner machine that I suggested in my previous post.
The low GB setting will handle fresh water river sand and gravel very well but this time I moved over to the large rocks where a lot of swimmers sit or dive from.
These rocks gave a strong ground signal in the low setting and zero ground signal in the high setting and the mojave easily picked out an Aussie 5 cent coin at approx 5 inches deep and the coin was found to be hard up against the rock surface. Disc was set at midway between foil and iron.
Several of my detectors do not respond well when scanning over these rocks including my safari.
So the simple fact that the Mojave can penetrate these river rocks and locate small crap metal coins impressed me. I switched to Low mineral mode to re test the signal before recovery and the coin signal was drowned out by the ground noise.

Whenever max sesnsativity can be used depth can be very good indeed; I was able to use max sens on this sandy beach at Pine Island in both High & Low mineral mode although at max there was the occasional false signal when the coil contacted the sand. This is not uncommon even from very expensive detectors.
It would be interesting to see what this little machine could do with a larger coil.
How the unit performs at the salt water beaches is as yet untested

I purchased this detector second hand from The States and by the time it arrived on my doorstep the 408 AUD price inc freight and import charges was excessive.

 

[Adrian ss]

Have heard a rumour that tesoro are still at least doing repairs. So maybe all is not lost yet??

 

[Maldon Gold Centre]

Have heard a rumour that tesoro are still at least doing repairs. So maybe all is not lost yet??

We repair Tesoro detectors. If you need a hand with anything let me know.

 

[mxt sniper]

Heard recent forum rumor that Tesoro is down but not out.

 

[PhaseTech]

Heard recent forum rumor that Tesoro is down but not out.

I really wish they'd just come out and make a public statement.

 

[Adrian ss]

Found this:
https://quartzsitegoldshowcom.wordpress.com/

Something is a bit sus?

 

[user 11578]

Found this:
https://quartzsitegoldshowcom.wordpress.com/

Something is a bit sus?

Very interesting indeed Adrian...