Home > Reviews > Tesoro

Tesoro Cibola

Price: $450
Avg. Score: 5 stars! 4.73
Based on 81 reviews

Avg. Durability: 5 stars!5.00
Avg. Ease of use: 5 stars!5.00
Maximum detection depth
Submit your review for Tesoro Cibola

Awesome results

September 26, 2010
I recently got this cibola from staffordshire metal detectors uk, check out his site, very informative. This little lightweight detector is brilliant, take no notice of the threshold ground balance setting and wack the threshold to full, sensitivity to nearly full and you will get an extra 3-4 inches on the normal impressive depths, dig all the 2 way signals and you will be amazed at the extra finds. Okay, you may get the odd deep iron or foil, but you will soon recognize when to dig or not, you don't need the pinpoint button as normal 2 way x'ing will find the target bang on every time.

Overall Rating 5 stars!

290

CI - BO - LA is Good on the California Beach too !

August 22, 2010
Now time seems to go by fast it has been over 3 months since our last post. Lots to tell but will keep short.. Have hit some nice finds NO not diamond rings but copper, 925 silvers, and the junk rings, small thin chains silver and yuks, coins, to matchbox cars and those %^$&$ pop tops.

The cibola is a worker on the California dry beach sand up to the moist sand, which is darn good for us. We use it as a third detect along with our garrett mark2 and fisher P.I. detects, and it can keep up pretty good on the dry and moist sand.
Picked up a pulsar watch by the way and a nice religious chain just the other day. Some have told us that it is not good on the California beaches, well they are wrong. We tone down the SENS, and KEEP it at just before the nickel DISC --- and IF your finding nickels well then you will find the gold!! If someone lost a little gold charm or ring the PP button well with a sand scoop you really do not need to use it..
Have4 mark2's 4 cibolas plus 16 other detects of
various brands which is a kick in the pants..

It is easy on the arm, with very little weight,
and we average a good 19/24 hours with one 9 volt battery.. . as to those niclad batts & chargers, well they are not to our liking. The duracell batts are very good and thats what we use. TIME on our hands,, well at our age anyway.. so we head up the coast to Santa Barbera in the mobil home and then start beachcombing, plus the parks etc all the way down to San Diego.

The little " C " is a winner in the parks, picnic and carnival etc grounds, one has read or wrote just about ALL that can be done with the cibola,, The REST is up to the individual user after that, and by damn the cibola will do its job all you have to do is go out and use it. Take care all and have a great labor day holiday.

Overall Rating 5 stars!

275

Easy right out of the Box!

June 05, 2010
I have owned a Whites MXT for several years. Although the MXT is a very versatile detector and meets many needs, it has always been quite heavy. Detecting for 2-4 hours would leave my arms sore for days. Enter the Cibola. Easy, light-weight and it works equally as well as the MXT for coins and caches. The Cibola, will not work as well as the MXT with gold, due to the detector frequency.

The Cibola is great as a new machine or a light-weight extra machine.

Overall Rating 5 stars!

206

Cibola is a $$$ maker

May 18, 2010
Got this new and have been to a park where other
coin shooters told me it was not worth their time, too much junk etc, well since last August 2009 have found one gold 14kt wedding band ring, one 14kt indian head gold ring w/ ruby eyes, one 925 silver charm ring, one silver 925 with stone and heavy at that, one solid silver ring which appears to be handmade, and 5 other smaller rings all silver, bought the cibola on sale for $340.00 plus free shipping from ((( jrsmetaldetecting ))) they are on Ebay also saved the 8.5% state sales tax here in sunny California which would have cost me over $24.00 plus .... SO------ I'm ahead even more.

Better yet this baby "" DOES WORK "" on the Beach Areas in dry or moist sand!!! The Indian head ring is sale priced retail at $668.00 at the local jewelery store in here Santa Monica.. also have found a lot of coins & the cibola do like the dimes.. nickels well I know I am on the right setting when I find those nickels BUT I field test, have made up sample sticks for dimes, nickels, copper and clad pennies!! And yes those dollar coins do come up along with the L.A. bus tokens,, have found and sold over 30 of them to one of the local park employees for $0.75 each It cost $1.25 to ride the bus.. so he saves and I get more money to keep my battery stash full for my other detects. There is NO secret to using this baby it is turn on and go and damn it IS a TURN ON when you dig that plug or scoop the sand and see the GOLD or silver in your hand.. it is also heck on quarters .. go go go Tesoro !! Excuse the gab here but darn I really like this little " C "
Thanks also to ALL the others that have given us hints here on what we can do in using this little C ... have a great summer and FIND all you can.. we also use the white's prizm6T, Garrett seahunter pulse induction, our old White's Liberty Di Prowhites coinmaster 6000 series 3, Compass x70, and others, heck we remember when we used the old white S-63 to 66 bfo detects..and the old army mine detectors in 1955..when we were 20..

Overall Rating 5 stars!

423

Cibola

March 29, 2010
Great detector, I picked mine up 2nd hand from at carboot sale for £150 and have since got rid of my minelab xs and xp gmp. I cant believe how much I am finding with the cibola and how deep some tiny roman coins are coming up from, its mind blowing that such a cheap detector works better than others 3 times the price new.

I would also like to add I am very lucky to live in a part of the UK where history is great, I live 10 miles from the old roman town of Colchester and 8 miles from the old Saxon port town of Ipswich, so in nearly every field I go on detecting history is alive all round me from the old Celtic tribes to the Romans, Saxons, right up to 2nd world war.

Overall Rating 5 stars!

323

Having trouble selecting a detector

February 16, 2010
This is a problem many have who are new to the metal detecting hobby. First you have to decide what you want, a beep & dig or a digital TID detector. I've used the digital machines and yes they are accurate but not 100% of the time, small aluminum read as coins ect.. no matter how well or how much Hype the detector ads throw at you "you will dig trash" and that's part of the hobby.

I am a happy Tesoro owner, why? Well they are excellent well built deep seeking detectors with very good discrimination, plus they are light weight and they have a Lifetime warranty and they back what they sell, if it quits send it in and in less than 15 days you are detecting again!! How many other detector companies offer this type of warranty or service? I see other brands that seem to have a new model every 6 months something Tesoro does not do, possibly for good reasons, they are happy and the customers are happy with what they have.

Now to the Cibola, here in SC the soils are mild and I've had no issues with the detector lacking the manual GB like its brother the Vaquero. I've hunted SC beaches with no problem in dry sand with sensititivy and threshold maxxed out, wet sand I can still hunt but have to adjust sensitivy/TH down a bit to reduce chatter.
Old home sites is where the Cibola shines, don't ignore those faint beeps just "digg" I've recovered Mercury dimes at 7-9" with no problem. The pinpoint does not work well on deep small finds, it tends to null as the object passes the center of the coil, I simply X the find and dig without the pinpoint and I'm usually dead on.

As far as Ground Balance,I press the PP and turn the threshold till I have a slight hum at waist high and while still holding the PP I lower the coil to the ground, if the threshold hum does not change you are fine as far as being ground balanced but if there is a change or null "silence",you are + or - on the factory preset ground balance, you will loose some depth but you can still hunt, as stated before in our soils I have not had a threshold change, if I do I'll move to another area but this is the method I use.

As far as discrimination it does a fine job rejecting iron, I've taped a Silver dime to a old square iron nail and it beeped loud and clear on the dime while rejecting the iron nail. I found the more I use the Cibola the more I'm able to decide if I should dig or not unlike the TID machines that suppose to make that decision for you.
I've heard many say the Cibola loves Aluminum even with the discrimination wide open and it does, if I don't get that double blip on a shallow target like it does on a coin but rather a loud long beep, I'll raise the coil 8" or move and if the signal is still strong it is highly possible you have a aluminum can especially at older sites, or use the pinpoint feature, coins and rings tend to have a sharp short beep, as I said it's a matter of getting to know the detector and making the decision to dig or not.

As far as air testing here are some of my test done using the stock coil with sensitivity on 10, threshold at 1 o-clock "slight steady hum" and discriminate on iron with US clad coins Nickel=9" Dime=7 1/8" Quarter=8" and the half at 9" .At 100% with full threshold & sensititivy "Supertuned" Nickel=12.50" Dime=9.75" Quarter=11" and the half at 12" as far as gold it has about the same depth air testing a Nickel.
These airtest were done on a wood table using headphones, new battery and the measurments I took were where the detector first broke silence at the maximum distance at the settings provided, so digg those faint signals. As we all know air test are controlled and cannot be used to determine how deep the detector will go in actual hunting conditions but I think the test are impressive for a under $400 detector.I'll give the Cibola 5 stars.

Overall Rating 5 stars!

873

My First Detector

January 27, 2010
I chose to purchase the Tesoro Cibola after conducting extensive research within the that price line. I've owned the Cibola for about 3 months now and I couldn't be happier.
The only thing I would like to acquire on my next detector will be some sort of ground balance. My current finds consist of a 14k gold bangle bracelet, two sterling silver rings, 1947 Netherland 10 cent (6 inches deep) a few wheat penny's and last a nice assortment of relics.
It consistently rings out nicely down as deep as 8 inches. It has taken me a few months to figure out the language of the detector but I can now easily and fairly consistently call my coins prior to digging them up.

The most valuable thing I have learned about this detector over the last 3 months with regards to finding the deeper and older finds is this. Sweep slow, 2 seconds a swing. Run you sensitivity at the top of the red, it seems to chatter to much when set to the highest point. I set my threshold at about the 2 o'clock position and adjust up to increase my volume level when need be.
When set to a slight hum it gives me a nice reading on how deep the object may be. And last, I listen for those nice sharp edge tones. It won't take long to figure out the difference between likely trash and good targets. Of course I typically dig everything anyway.

So to summarize, for someone who has just recently had the fortune of getting into this hobby, I would say that this is a great reasonable price detector with the power to find items like a much more expensive unit.
Yes, it may not have the bells and whistles, but I get just as much of a kick out of listing to my detector talk to me and successfully understanding what it has told me. Old school and very cool!!

Overall Rating 5 stars!

374

The pinpointing machine

December 16, 2009
I've owned my cibola for about 1 1/2 years.
I love it. Its light, operates with 1, 9 volt bat. last about 2 good hunts about 10 to 12 hours.
I can out pinpoint anybody I've hunted with.
I never use the pinpoint button that it has. You cross it twice over the target and your digging. That is no exageration. My buddy uses a whites prisum. I'll dig 3 targets to his 1. No brag just fact. If you run it on max descrimination youll find everything you want except gold. I had the tesoro deleon got rid of it because it chatteres all the time.

When I turn on the cibola there is no noise what so ever till I hit a target. I keep the threshold and sen in the middle, if I pick up a light signal or quick chatter I'll kick them both to max and go over it again. I've got some deep targets doing that. I have picked up silver at 10 inches. A small necklace charm the size of a pencil eraser 10 inches deep. I have nothing bad to say its a great machine for beginner or expert. I started this in the 70's and got out for a long time and started back with this cibola. Greattttttttttt machine!

Overall Rating 5 stars!

433

Tesoro Cibola

December 10, 2009
I have used the cibola for 2 months now and have found an indian head cent, silver ring, wheat pennies and tons of clad, a 18k gold bracelet that I took to the pawn shop and received 45 dollars for it.

This machine is a quarter killer, if you can tell the difference in the tone you can find some good stuff, good beginners machine, the slower you move with this machine the deeper it will pick up. I bought mine like new from a pawn shop for 230 dollar a good investment that is paying for its self!!

Overall Rating 4 stars

203

I WAS COMPLETLEY SUPRISED!! AWESOME!

September 12, 2009
The first Tesoro that I bought was a Tesoro Tejon and that thing just layed on the ground and made freaky noises while I was digging a target. I had it about 2 weeks and I just could not control it. I called the dealer and he didn't want to take it back so I called Vince at Tesoro and he just could not be of much help xcept send it in and we will take a look. The basic company cr*p! So the dealer takes the Tejon back and I get the high tone Cibola. You definetly want the HIGH TONE Cibola.
So I take it out and a listen to the detector and I read the manual and read darn near everything on the internet and I decide that I am going to dig evry target the detector beeps at and I dig a pull tab and then I dig a rusty piece of iron and so on until I hit a Carnival token and this time there is no beep but a sharp tone that smacks the earphones LOUD, I dig & learn that the detector is more than a beep and dig machine.

This is a fun machine and it's stable as hell! I had to turn the sensitivity all the way up and the threshold all the way up and still it doesn't freak out. That's the way you supertune the Cibola. It really goes deep, and I know all the people say that but I dug an old fish lure out of 18 inches of river sand! So the Cibola is a detector that I would put up against all the detectors out there and I can hear any target they can hear. Guranteed. If you live in places with a lot of minerals, get the Vaquero. The Vaquero is just a Ciola with a ground balance. Enjoy hunting!

Overall Rating 5 stars!

408

Submit your review for Tesoro Cibola