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OK, here is a Gold Bug vs Gold Bug 2 story for you. It was 1991 and I had my brand new Gold Bug 2 hot from the factory. I had already proven to myself it could run rings around the old Gold Bug for finding small gold. My family made a trip to some old prospecting haunts in Alaska to go detecting for a few days. My sister was along with her old model Gold Bug. I was of course bragging my new Gold Bug 2 up to her and her "old" model.

 

All is going well and I am finding gold, but there is one patch of hot bedrock that the Gold Bug 2 just hates. I can't get any ground balance at all on it or even get the detector close without an overload without turning the sensitivity way down. Lots of gold on easier stuff to hunt though so I just leave it be.

 

My sister wanders onto the bedrock with the original Gold Bug, and it easily ground balanced on that hot bedrock and ran just fine. Pretty soon my sister is digging a pit. And out pops a 7 pennyweight nugget, the biggest of that trip! I learned a very important lesson very early on about the Gold Bug 2. It may be hot as a pistol, but a lower frequency VLF wins the day on larger gold in really hot ground. The main reason I still think about the old Gold Bug now and then is it would handle really bad ground better than most modern VLF detectors and in fact was the only VLF detector I ever tried that would ground balance out arsenopyrite. If I ever trip over one in good condition really, really cheap I would probably buy it out of nostalgia. The compact removable box, S rod, and elliptical coils were ground breaking design moves at that time. A true nugget detecting classic but passed by with newer technology.

 

My sister in 1991 with her Gold Bug and the 7 dwt nugget she just found with it:

 

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I was told directly by Dave Johnson (the designer) that the coils are not compatible between the original Gold Bug and new Gold Bug. I doubt it would hurt anything though to try it.

I like the old Gold Bug and still have a new 4" round coil rat holed away just in case I ever got one again, but the lack of iron disc is the big problem. If I want to dig it all, I will use a PI.

 

The connector pins are set up different. So its a no go.

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