Knowing the Requirements
Look at the Collector Badge. You'll need to complete a certain percentage of your catalog, with items such as clothing, furniture, and fossils. Every time a unique item is in your inventory, it will be added to your catalog, even if you get rid of it later. Bronze rank: Complete 20% of the catalog Silver rank: Complete 50% of the catalog Gold rank: Complete 80% of the catalog You will find it's less (approximately 60/70%) if you have the Welcome Amiibo update, as new items were added.
Accomplish the minimum amount required. There is a few ways to do so. Buy stuff, accept gifts from villagers or you can go to a friend's town and pick up items of their ground and put them back down again.
Locate Phineas. When a player achieves the minimum for a level, Phineas will appear somewhere in town on clear days. If it rains or snows on any given day, Phineas will not appear, even if it stops raining/snowing later that day.
Talk to him. At times, he'll give you multiple badges, so just keep taking until the option for getting badges is no longer there. To talk to Phineas, stand face-to-face with him, and press A.
View your badge on your Town Pass Card. Learn that ranks override each other, so if you achieve a bronze, a silver one will override it instead of showing both ranks. You can see all ranks if you tap on the badge.
Expanding Your Catalog
Know what gets added to your catalog. Not all items are added to your catalog. The items that get added to your catalog are: Furniture Wallpaper Flooring Clothes (this includes shirts, dresses, bottoms, headgear, accessories, socks and hosiery, umbrellas, and shoes) Assessed fossils Gyroids Music Stationery Tools, ore, flowers and other plants (excluding home plants, which are categorised as furniture), fruit, shells, wrapping paper, and pitfall seeds will not be added to your catalog. These are more seen as one-off items. Bugs, fish and sea creatures do not get added to your catalog, but instead get added to your encyclopedia. This can contribute to getting an encyclopedia badge.
Go to Main Street frequently. All shops in Main Street has new stock daily. The shops you can buy things from are the Nooks' shop (regardless of how much it has been expanded), Able Sisters, the garden shop, Gracie's shop, Kicks and the museum shop. Depending on how much progress you have made in the game, some of these options might be unavailable. You can also check up on the flea-market space in Re-Tail for any items put up by your villagers.
Receive letters with presents. You can get up to ten letters daily in Animal Crossing: New Leaf. If you have any letters, the mail icon on your mailbox will flash. If a letter has a present attached, click on it and select "present". If you send letters with presents to your villagers regularly, you are more likely to get letters with presents back. The present you give and the stationary you use will also be added to your catalog. This can also contribute to you getting a letter badge. You can receive up to ten letters at a time. Helping Gulliver will also give you a new item. Check your beach daily, including your private beach, if you have one (the bit that you can only get to with a wetsuit). If you find Gulliver, use a megaphone next to him or speak to him until he wakes up, then help him remember what country he was going to. If you guess the country wrong, he will send a chocolate coin, rather than a souvenir. You can only find Gulliver on your own beach, never on the island.
Dig up stars in the ground. Every day, you will get at least five stars on the ground somewhere on your town. Equip your shovel, then press A while standing in front of the star to dig it up. They will be in a different location each day, so look around your whole town. Any gyroids you have in your inventory will be added to your catalog. Have all your fossils assessed by Blathers to have them added to your catalog. Every day there will be a pitfall seed in your town, watch out! These aren't worth much bells and aren't added to your catalog, so you are best-off falling in them. If you planted bamboo anywhere in your town, more bamboo shoots will be planted around them, if you see a star shape near some bamboo, it is most likely a bamboo shoot. Anything buried in your town, besides plants will appear as a star-shaped hole. You do not find fossils or gyroids on the beach, unless you put them there.
Do favours for villagers. This includes delivering presents, giving lost items, giving items, and trades. Your villager will give you a gift as a reward. A villager might also sell items to you, usually for a higher price than usual. If you visit a villagers house, or they visit yours on request, they will mail a present to you the next day. If you visit a villagers house on request, they might also be willing to sell an item to you.
Obtain free furniture and items in a variety of different ways. You can pop balloons (contributes to getting a balloon badge), checking lost and found, participating in events, and shaking non-fruit trees until you find one with a leaf falling out, which is furniture. Press Y to pick up items. Beehives and bells might also fall out of trees. Be careful as the bees can sting you if you don't catch them or get away in time.
Get items from the campground, if you have the Welcome Amiibo update. Campground items cost MEOW tokens as opposed to bells. You can order furniture from the caravan, or you can buy items from Harv. The items and the caravan there change daily. To get MEOW tokens, you have to complete tasks by a certain deadline. Check your Town Pass Card (TPC) to see what the tasks are, some change daily, some change weekly. Don't confuse the campground with the campsite. Items bought directly from the campground cost five MEOW tokens and items ordered from caravans cost three MEOW tokens.
Order furniture from the Happy Home Academy. You will find this to the north of Main Street. Speak to the brown dog, Digby, to enter. You can enter any house there and order furniture, wallpapers and flooring from them. To get people in your HHA, you must put your 3DS on sleep, with the Animal Crossing: New Leaf gamecard in when you go out and about. If you pass by other people with their 3DS on sleep and the New Leaf game, they will be added to your HHA. Some furniture, such as refurbished furniture, cannot be ordered from the Happy Home Academy.
Swap items with friends. Go to a friend's town, or have them go to yours, and put your items on the ground and have them do the same. Simply picking up an item is enough to get the item in your catalog. You can also buy items from your friend's shops.
Buy items from the island. Every day they island will have four different items for sale. Once you have unlocked the island, you can go there as much as you want, with a fee of 1,000 bells each time. These items cost medals instead of bells. You can get medals for completing tours. Getting medals helps towards getting your medal badge. Any furniture or clothing bought at the island will be added to your catalog. Items bought at the island will be found in your item pick-up box.
Request songs from K.K. Slider every Saturday evening. There is a section in your catalog dedicated to songs. While you can buy songs from the Nooks' store, you can get one for free once a week. Go to Club LOL every Saturday evening and speak to him. He will ask you for any song requests, when he does, type the exact song title and he will play it for you. You will get a free copy of the first song you request. You can also earn a K.K. Slider badge this way.
Buy fortune cookies. Fortune cookies offer exclusive items and can be bought at the Nooks' store. Fortune cookies cost two play coins each. Even if you don't get a winning ticket, you will still get a prize, it will just not be exclusive to fortune cookies. To earn play coins, put your 3DS on sleep and get some steps. Every 100 steps you will get a play coin, and you can get a maximum of ten play coins a day.
Get a job at the café. Once you have unlocked the café as a public works project, and all fees are payed, you can buy coffee and eventually get a job. Brewster will occasionally give you items as rewards for completing shifts.
Swap items with your save files. You can have up to four save files in New Leaf. Each save file is a human character that you can control. They all have their own catalogs, so you can put items on the ground and have other save files pick them up and put them back down again, so each save file has the items added to their catalog.
Take part in seasonal events. Seasonal events give you the chance to get exclusive items for free. Events include Festival, Bunny Day, Halloween and the Harvest Festival. Building a snowman also gives you the opportunity to get free furniture. Speaking to Isabelle in the town plaza on certain days such as New Year's Eve or the Summer Solstice. You can get furniture by breaking records in the Bug Off and Fishing Tourney. You also get free furniture by viewing meteor showers.
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