The Art of Hoarding

Hoarding is surprisingly effortless. It can be done for the Packrat avatar, as a hobby, or for profit. Ready to learn how to hoard? You simply take an item, stash it in your Safety Deposit Box, and... wait. And while that item sits in the box, it will slowly gain value. Then one day, you will realize that you can sell that item for thousands and thousands more than you paid! What a profit!

This isn't always the case, however. The Safety Deposit Box has many categories, and not all of them are profitable. Let's take a look at each category and see which are worth hoarding, and which are just a waste of time. I have skipped categories that contain solely Neocash items, because it is against the rules to sell those for neopoints.

Album Item

It's very hard to go wrong with these. As you can't pull them back out of your album, they will go up in price. I have seen stamps go from almost worthless to costing three million neopoints in less than a year, so definitely hang onto these. The only ones that are pointless to hoard are the ones given out regularly by Key Quest or another event.

Battledome Equipment

Items marked as one use, fragile, or limited use can be good for hoarding, because they will go down in number. (This doesn't apply to all of them – snowballs, for example, are unlikely to be priced in the thousands anytime soon.) Beyond that, these aren't often worth it.

Books

Almost all books are good for hoarding. The only type that aren't are ones that can be easily obtained anywhere – Waterlogged Book, for instance, can be fished up easily in Maraqua. Because books disappear once read, their prices will steadily go up with time. Take rarity into consideration here, and if books are being given out by the Advent Calendar or such, buy as many as you can from user shops and stash them away. Months or years later, they will be there for a large profit.

Clothes

Wearable clothes are good for hoarding if they are from the Advent Calendar or a similar event, but they won't go up in price as quickly as some other categories will. Unwearable clothes, though, present the best opportunity for neopoints if one of them becomes wearable. TNT has stated that not every clothing item will become wearable, so don't get your hopes up too high, but it can't hurt to hang onto some of these.

Codestones

Codestones are a great item to hoard! You can find them on the floor or as a prize from Key Quest, so you shouldn't need to spend any money here unless you are looking to snipe items off the Shop Wizard (searching for them with the hope of finding an underpriced one to resell for a profit). The best time to sell codestones is during a plot that involves the Battledome, as it will increase the demand to train pets. If you don't want to wait that long, you can visit the volcano on Mystery Island and see if you can turn your regular codestones into a red one! (Note: Red codestones can end up being worth less than the codestones they were traded in for, but they can also end up being worth a good deal more. This isn't really a guaranteed money-making method unless you got some or all of the codestones for free.)

Collectable Card

Unlike stamps, cards can be taken out of your album anytime, so there's really not much reason to hoard them. If you get your hands on a retired card, though, that could become quite valuable.

Cures

Cures tend to go up in price once there becomes a new way to get a disease – when bobbing for apples was revealed to give some pets Blurry Vision, for example, the cure became more expensive. Pay attention to the rarity here for best results, as low-rarity items can easily be grabbed from the pharmacy and so are unlikely to increase in price.

Dubloons

Like codestones, these are very good items to hoard, but may be harder to come across. These are best sold during a time when pet training items are in high demand, such as during the battledome part of a plot.

Food

Sometimes this category can be profitable to hoard, and sometimes not at all. Retired and Advent Calendar food can make you a lot of money in the long run, as it isn't sold in shops. Some neggs can also make a profit, but usually only ones that can be turned in at the Neggery or that increase a pet's stats.

Gift

Just like food items, this really depends on the gift. There is only one gift item that is one-use, which is the A Mysterious Valentines Card item (buy these in summer or fall and sell them close to Valentine's Day for maximum profit). Some gift items do eventually become wearable, which tends to have prices climbing, but you may be waiting a long time for that to happen.

Grooming

These are not worth hoarding. They aren't used up, so prices tend to hover around the same point, making for little income here.

Instruments

Just like grooming items, these aren't used up. They are not really worth hoarding, so don't waste your time and money here.

Magic Item

Healing potions tend to remain very cheap. If you can get a morphing potion, that will also go into this category and will almost always increase in price. (Some exceptions are the Green Uni and Orange Koi Morphing Potions, as these are very easy to come by.)

Meridell Potion

The same rules should be followed here as for the Battledome Equipment category. Be careful what you invest in!

Neogarden/Neohome

These don't disappear once used, and I've personally only ever made profit from these items when they are from the Advent Calendar. Your mileage may vary here.

Paint Brush

Hoarding paint brushes isn't as straightforward as hoarding some other items. Not all paint brushes are worth hoarding, as you run the risk of Tarla or a site event giving them out and quickly making them plummet in value. However, seasonal paint brushes (such as the Halloween Paint Brush) often shoot up in price close to their respective holidays, so if you happen across one, you may want to wait until a good time to sell it. Be careful with Christmas Paint Brushes, however. These can be tricky to sell, as the Advent Calendar can give them out in December and quickly make them worthless.

Petpet

Retired petpets and the more rare ones will go up in price ninety-nine percent of the time. If you plan to hoard petpets, be aware that painted ones can be harder to sell. Oh, and please be good to the little guys. They're living creatures, too.

Petpetpet

There's no way to get a petpetpet off your petpet unless you want the little guy to go poof. This makes them nearly guaranteed to climb in price. The Mootix is an avatar item and worth millions, so don't forget about that!

School

These items are useless, and have been that way since Neoschool was cancelled. Don't bother trying to hoard them.

Special

These items can go either way, because the 'Special' category consists of many types of items. Some untradeable items go in here, which can't really be hoarded because they can't be sold. Backgrounds are also part of this category. These don't tend to go up in price unless they are from a site event or the Advent Calendar. Even then, they will not usually go up that much because they are not one-use items. One thing in this category that is worth hoarding, though? Map pieces. You can find these on the floor or snipe them from shops for a low price, and as they disappear when someone puts them together, they will continue to go up in price.

Tiki Tack

These items are good for the Packrat avatar, but not much else. Don't bother hoarding them, as they are only worth a handful of neopoints at most.

Toys

A few toys here and there are wearable, but don't hold your breath waiting for a huge profit here. Pinatas are the exception to this, as they are avatar items and break once used.

Trading Card

Like collectable cards, these really aren't worth holding onto unless you have a gallery of them. MSPP (TCG) is, of course, the exception.

Utility Fish

These don't really have a use other than gallery items. There's not really a point to hoarding them, unless they become more useful in the future.

World Challenge

I personally only toss these into my Safety Deposit Box when trying to complete a map so that none of the pieces get lost. They aren't likely to have their production stopped in the near future, so hoarding isn't really worth it.

Hopefully you now have a good idea of what to hoard, and perhaps more importantly, what not to hoard. With minimal neopoints, minimal effort, and enough patience, you'll be rolling in the neopoints in no time.

What are you waiting for? Get hoarding!