Collecting 101

Have you ever wanted to collect something? Has the idea of finding and buying every item with the word "Illusen" in it seemed daunting? Have you started collecting things only to stop a few days later because the task was too hard, or too repetitive? Or, have you always wondered what drove people to spend weeks and months and hundreds of thousands of Neopoints collecting things to put them in a gallery? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this guide to collecting is for you.

Collecting is an art. Simply searching on the shop wiz for the word purple over and over again will produce some results, yes, but in reality your collection will never grow, and will leave you disappointed that you couldn't collect every purple item in Neopia. This guide will show you exactly how to collect.

1. Of course, the first step has to be to decide what you want to collect. You should pick something you enjoy, and something that is in your price range. Sure, it would be nice to have a gallery of every single paint brush, but that's not realistic if you only have 100k. You should also take into consideration how many of that item there is. If there are 203948234082098 things of a certain category, like 'food', then you might not want to collect that item, or at least narrow it down and collect only round food, or only purple food. But if there are a hundred or so items, when you do get them all you will feel accomplished, but not overwhelmed. One good item to start with would be Usuki items.

2. The next step is organization. For this step, a pack of highlighters, a pen, and a few sheets of paper are going to be your best friends. Also, you will need a reliable Neopet item search engine. You can find one of these by asking around. Once you decide what to collect, print your list, and move on to the next step.

3. Now, grab your highlighters and your list, and it's time to make a key. You'll want at least 5 different highlighter colors. Using your colors, you want to set up a key like this. Every item that costs less than 1000 Neopoints, will be highlighted in orange. So on the corner of your paper, you will write '<1000' in the orange highlighter. For every item that costs under 3000 Neopoints, you will highlight it in green. So you will write '<3000' with the green highlighter. Continue this pattern until your key looks something like this.

<1000 (orange)

<3000 (green)

<10000 (pink)

<99999 (blue)

Unbuyable (yellow)

4. Now, go to the bank and withdraw 5 to 10 thousand Neopoints. Now, start at the top of your list. Let's pretend this item is 'Prom Date Usuki'. So search for that item on the shop wiz. You will see the price of it is about 1500 Neopoints. So you will highlight that item in green. Continue down the list, highlighting every single item. However, for now you should only buy the items you highlight in orange. When you buy an item, check it off by using your pen to make a check mark next to the item. When you run out of your money that you have withdrawn from the bank, DO NOT withdraw more. Every day at most for this step you only want to spend 10k. However, if you still have time, you can continue to highlight and search, but DO NOT buy anything until the next day.

5. Once you run out of money, and are bored highlighting items, you want to go ahead and buy some space in your gallery. I try to increase it at least 5 times each day. Then move as many items into it as you can. This will keep them safe from any random events, and you can begin showing them off!

6. The next day when you start collecting again, start with the first item you highlighted in orange that you didn't buy. Withdraw another 5 or 10k and start buying all the items in orange that you haven't bought yet. Don't forget to check them off! Once you get to the end of your list, if you still have items that you haven't searched for yet, continue searching and keep buying the "orange" items until you once again have run out of cash for that day.

7. Once you have highlighted every item and purchased every single "orange" item, you can move to the next step.

8. Now, you'll want to take out between 10 and 15k from the bank. Starting with the first "green" item, you can begin buying. Remember, all of these items will be under 3k. Once again, once you run out of money do not withdraw more. You can, however, once again increase the size of and restock your gallery.

9. After you have purchased every green item, then start collecting the pink items. You'll only want to withdraw between 20 and 25k for these items daily.

10. Once you get to the blue items, it may be easier to go through and recolor them. You may want to print off a new list that only has the blue items, and re-highlight them. For instance this time, items between 10 and 30k, might be highlighted in orange. Items between 30 and 50k in green, 50 and 70k pink, and above 70k blue. This step, however, is optional. You may decide that you just want to pick and choose items to buy daily. But once again, buy only a few items a day. Don't try to buy every item in one day.

If you follow these steps, you'll be sure to have a collection in no time. But here are a few extra hints and tips...

1. If you search for an item on the shop wiz, and it says: "Searching for... I did not find anything :( Please try again and I will search elsewhere!", then that item does not exist ANYWHERE in Neopia. That means that you probably made a typo, or that you accidentally typed an extra word, or omitted one.

2. If you search for an item on the shop wiz, and it says: "Searching for... *Your item here* I did not find anything :( Please try again and I will search elsewhere!", then that means that the item DOES exist in Neopia, it's just unlisted on the shop wiz. You might want to check the trading post, or the auction house, but for now, you should highlight it in yellow, or whichever color you choose to represent unbuyable items.

3. Never exceed the amount of money you withdrew from the bank. You'll end up spending all of your money way too quickly, and will end up being bankrupt. By spending only a little a day, when you aren't collecting, you can do things to gain money to shop the next day.

I hope this guide has taught you a thing or two about collecting, and hopefully more Neopians will be starting collections after reading this article!

~Bikinibottom_5712