Treasure Mate Pinpointer Test in Southeastern New Mexico

It was on April 26, 2003 that I had the pleasure of meeting Les & Carol Berg at the GPAA Gold Show in Albuquerque, New Mexico. As a long time professional user of Tesoro products (Lobo Super Traq), I was intrigued with the bright yellow hand held pinpointer designed by Les & Carol of Treasure West and manufactured by Tesoro. I was amazed with the depth that the pinpointer was achieving inside the fairground building. I asked Les and Carol if they would entertain the idea of allowing me to test this pinpointer in the field and against the other pin pointers on the market today. Working as a professional archaeologist and using metal detector on historical projects, I have used a number of pinpointers. Pinpointers are employed to prevent damage when recovering metal objects after they have been located with the aid of a metal detector.

I received the Treasure Mate on June 28, 2003. My first test was at an area known as Oro Grande, New Mexico. I have found gold nuggets here in the past and I usually test new metal detectors in the area because of the highly mineralized ground. In addition, there is trash and lead littering the ground here due to bird hunters and gun enthusiast. On this day I would not find any gold nuggets, but the Treasure Mate made short work of the lead birds hot and bullets. The Treasure Mate had no problem finding the lead shot from BB to shot size #8 in the test areas (32 pieces of lead birdshot and eleven bullet fragments were located). Ground balancing the Treasure Mate in the field was very easy and its handy pouch worked great.

Field & Bench Test Comparison

The Treasure Mate along with four other pinpointers was tested on seven targets. All seven targets were tested both in the field and on a bench. In the field, targets were placed in controlled holes and measured. All measurements were done with a plastic inch/metric Vernier caliper.

Note: * = indicates that the target had to touch the probe to facilitate a response. In testing;
Not all pinpointers are the same e.g. Periscope is a PI unit and the tip needs to touch the object to verify.

Results

Overall, the Treasure Mate is #1 in its class of hand held pinpointers! Comparing the results
from the chart shows that the Treasure Mate beats the competition. The Treasure Mate is a very slick and well designed pinpointer and even in highly mineralized ground the Treasure Mate was impressive. Operating the Treasure Mate is very easy and the instructions walk you through every step of the process. The Treasure Mate even has a limited lifetime warranty. As a professional archaeologist I highly recommended using the Treasure Mate pinpointer to avoid damaging metal objects during the retrieval stage. Thanks Les and Carol Berg and James Gifford.

P.S. Perhaps your next pinpointer will be completely waterproof?

Sincerely,

Christopher D. Adams

Archaeologist, Lincoln National Forest, SE New Mexico