Mst of our metal were detectors made in Oregon:

[LuckyLarry]

Most of our detectors made in Oregon:

I recently read that more than half of the metal detectors sold in America were made in Oregon. That might be true, Fishers started here (Medford). So did Teknetics (Lebanon), so did Compass (Forest Grove) and one or two other metal detector manufacturers started here too. Whites was started here (Sweet Home, Oregon), and according to most records they sell more detectors to America than any other company. The same goes for greater Europe. I don't know for sure, but I think they were all started here because of the wide variety of tough soil conditions desired for testing. Whites is still #1 in sales, with 1st Texas a close 2nd, or so the stories go.

Larry

 

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[Chug And Red]

Go Oregon!!!! Red and I have been to The whites site/ musuem twice!!! It is a Great Time Wlaking through It, While waiting for their Great Customer service to Resolve the Problems With the Coils!!! It took longer to look at the treasures than it took to get the Coils replaced HH Chug

 

[gleaner1]

Fisher Research Labs or FISHER metal detectors (the Mscope® guys) started in CA. Doc Fisher patented the hand held tecter and built them at first in Palo Alto (1931). Certainly the vast majority of Fisher tecters must have come out of the Los Banos plant built in 1974. Some vintage units from the sixties up to 1974 must be in the hands of collectors, these came out of Belmont. After First Texas acquisition 2006, the plant moved to El Paso. There was a good post of old fisher machines I will try to dig it out. So, you have Fisher(CA and TX), Garrett(TX), and Tesoro(AZ) and Whites(OR). Back in the day Whites could have had half the machines out there, they dominated thru the heydays. Garret sold bazillions too.

 

[Keppy]

LL... How many detector companies in Oregon now ? ..... But i think that Whites sells more detectors than any other company......

 

[LuckyLarry]

I stand corrected about Fisher, but Fisher did have a manufacturing plant in Medford, Oregon, although it may have been one that was "farmed out" with a different name, a common practice back in the 70's, 80's, and 90's. I knew people who worked at that plant and I worked for a firm that had it's hand in the R&D and production of xxxxxx metal detectors back in the 80's in electronics R&D and as production supervisor. George Payne had his hand in nearly every company back then and lived in Oregon, so the writing is on the wall. It appears he is still involved in some ways too. I know that George started his Teknetics detector engineering upstairs in a building just behind the old Wal-Mart in Lebanon, Oregon, because I lived in that town and visited the place now and then.

George was a rather pleasant chap too. He also invented the Treasure Baron, engineered at Tesoro, Compass, Fisher, Whites, D-Tex, Gold Mountain, Bounty Hunter, and a couple of other companies too. So one question is, who started the companies and their ideas, and where did he or they live, and where were they all manufactured? To me, those who originated most of our detectors in the first place is where it all started, including Gerhard Fisher and John Earle, etc, not as a company, but as a source of essential engineering. If I'm correct Gerhard Fischer started out in Dresden, Germany about 100 miles NE of where my people came from, then stayed a short while in Illinois, then on to California, right? But he didn't invent the metal detector, he just got the first patent. Heinrich Dove, Alexander Bell, Albert Einstein, but especially one other chap named Lieutenant Josef Stanislaw Kosacki, a Polish man who designed the first (mine) detector was probably the first to create a (real) working metal detector. Westinghouse Corporation invented the multi-band (AKA BBS) system for its telegraph lines so more than one person could talk on the same line at the same time. Minelab had nothing to do with it, they weren't even thought of back then. So why was Oregon chosen by the main master engineer George Payne (of whom we are still using his basic inventions) as the best place to live and create so many ideas and beginnings of so many good machines? I think it's the diverse Oregon soils that did it. But I'm just guessing. Maybe it was the weather? Probably not.

Hey Keppy, we only have one company left, I think. It's just not a good place for transporting to so many other places any more. But yes, Whites is #1 in worldwide sales and has been for decades, not that they are any better than others, but their advertising is superb. And yes, Garrett sells the most security detectors in the world, but Whites dominates the hobby detector productions.

Here is some interesting reading: jb-ms.com/Baron/

Just highlight and put in your browser.

Larry

 

[Terry Soloman]

The most? Kind of like saying Oregon is the "China" of America isn't it? I'll go with "Some of the best, are made in Arizona."

 

[LuckyLarry]

Tesoros have their place in this hobby Terry, and personally I like some of them, but there is no "best", no ideal or "perfect for all uses" metal detector. Like one man once said, "There are no good ones, but some are sometimes better than others, and sometimes not.

BTW, the electronics parts for our metal detectors are now made almost exclusively in China (#1), Japan, Mexico, S. Korea, Nepal, the Philipines, Taiwan, and other places. If made in America, they would cost too much for us to afford. We often assemble them, but that too is not carved in granite. Also it has been determined that a $200 cell phone made in China would cost us $41,000 made in the USA, and a same-priced metal detector would be about equal $$ too. Most detectors made in Oregon now (and then) are no different in that "where it's made" regard, and the same goes for Tesoros too. So would that mean that Arizona is the "China" of America too?

Larry

 

[Carl-NC]

The original Bounty Hunter (Pacific Northwest Instruments, Klamath Falls), Compass (Forest Grove), Teknetics (Lebanon), and Discovery (Sweet Home) all originated with Ex-White's employees. There is also an industrial detector company, Metal Detectors Inc (Eugene), don't know how they got started but I think George Payne has been involved.

 

[LuckyLarry]

Well said Carl...

 

[baywalker]

Tectors are like women there all good some are just better then others