Do you have a great idea for a gallery? Do you want to collect something new? Are you frustrated and don't know where to start? My guide will hopefully help you with anything having to do with collecting--whether you are trying to find that special item or whether you are just trying to find a theme!
Topics covered in this guide:
|| Finding a Theme - Choosing the Items - Collecting and NPs - Filling the Collection - Finding Hard-to-find Items - The Price is Right - Making a Layout - Organization - Gallery Spotlight (new!) - Helpful Links ||
FINDING A THEME
This may very well be the most difficult part of collecting. Now if you are not collecting for a gallery, you can skip this part...card collections or stamps don't need a theme. First, you'll want to pick a broad topic that doesn't have a time to any specific item--keywords like species, world, game, food, drink...etc are a good place to start. Unless you are ready for a big challenge, I would suggest not stopping at a broad topic. For example, Petpet galleries and Galleries of Evil tend to be arduous and stressful because they encompass SO many things--believe me I tried an overall Gallery of Evil. But feel free to do so! Once you have your broad topic, go a bit further. If you choose species, do you have a certain one in mind? If you like evil items maybe you can collect a certain type of item like evil plushies! If you want to look around and see what is available, pick a high rarity item that fits your topic and search through the galleries for it. This will give you an idea if others have the same theme! Another resource is a gallery index. You will find a small collection of them linked at the bottom of this guide. Now, these indices will not list ALL galleries but it will give you an idea of how many active galleries are collecting the same thing! If you don't quite understand how choosing a theme works, the examples below might help!
Games --------- Turmac Roll
Species --------- Moehog
Petpets --------- Candychans
World --------- Mystery Island
Colors --------- Grey
These are just a few of the possibilities with choosing a theme. And you can go even further...You can only do certain Mystery Island items or certain grey items. I suggest that you take a look at the "Collecting and NPs" section of this guide before you make your final selection, as some themes may be outside of the budget you want to spend. If you are having trouble choosing one that you like, look for things that you like in real life like hobbies or favorite things. For example, a bear enthusiast may want to collect Polarchucks and Onas since they have a bear-like quality to them. My best advice is to choose something that suits you and not something that is necessarily popular. HOWEVER, do not be discouraged if you like a popular theme--you can also make yours special with your layout, description and other content. Originality is key with gallery collecting!
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CHOOSING THE ITEMS
Now that you have your theme, you will need to find out which items should go into your collection. Item databases are an important tool when collecting. Jellyneo and Neoitems are two databases that you can search to find your items. Please be aware that JN seems to be more up to date so it is your best bet. Before you start, you need to decide a few things. Are you collecting items that only feature your theme on the item? For example, I collect korbats. In my collection I also have bat-like items and also items that mention korbats in the description. However, I do NOT collect darigan items that do not directly deal with Lord Darigan (items with his image or speaking about him). So I don't have darigan petpets and such. Breaking down your theme into a list like this can help you keep track of items and can also cut down on what goes into the collection--which in turn can cut down or increase your costs depending on what goes into your gallery. Once you have a list of the type of items you want, you can start your search. Again, I will use my collection as an example.
1. First of course, I search korbat. This brings up any items with that word in the name.
2. Do a search on pieces of the theme name. There are items that are a combination of words like Elestone (elephante) and the book Peopatras Petpets (peophin). There are also items that only have parts of words like bat cookies! Make sure that you choose the option "partial" when searching for parts of words.
3. My favorite part of finding items is searching the description. Not every item having to do with a theme will have a certain word in the item name. For example, the description for the petpet Barbat says, "Legend has it that a band of evil Korbats were transformed into mindless Barbats under a wicked curse." Now in this instance I would have found barbat if I had searched "bat," but there are other items that do not. Books are a common item falling under this catergory.
4. The final strategy in finding your items is to know your theme well and explore. This can be difficult since there are random TCGs and books that will have a picture on it but it won't mention that picture in the title or the description. Knowing your characters, events, holidays, plots, and stories can mean the difference between a full gallery and an incomplete one.
As you are finding these items, make a list with the name and the rarity. I find that using a word processor on your computer makes it easy and convenient and even if you want a printed version, there are some processors that can make it into a checklist! This will help you out later on. And as newer items come out, the New Features page is a great way to keep up with new items! If you are having trouble finding items, or if you want to make sure you have everything you need, you can again turn to gallery indices. For those who collect stamps, the best place to start is a pricing guide like this one (even if it is not up to date it should give you a good idea). Also if you wish to see a good collection, check out dragona5's stamp album here, as she (at any time) has the most complete if not complete album out there. If collecting collectable cards are more your speed, then you can find a full list of cards here. Asrafrate has a wonderful guide dedicated to CC collecting here that is very helpful as well! And if you are brave enought to delve into the world of TCG collecting, you can find the set checklists here. And lastly, for avatar collectors, you can either join a site where you can keep track of them like Avatarlog, or you can keep track on a petpage. For a list of avatars that are available, seasonal, and retired, Stevo has a wonderful guide with clickable links.
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COLLECTING AND NPS
Your neobudget is important to consider when collecting. Now I am not saying to rule out expensive collections if you are not a fast earner. Collecting is supposed to be fun, and if there is no challenge you can get board easily and give up. However, if you have a small budget and you choose to start a Draik gallery, then you might not be able to finish for a while especially with the prices of potions and eggs. Choosing a specific theme rather than a broad one can help in this respect. If you still like the idea of Draik items, why not choose a specific type of Draik item? Weaponry, books, plushies...all of these can be adapted into a theme. They might be smaller, but they will also lighten the NP load. I have decided to break down types of galleries and collections to show you what you have in store:
1. Species - If you are doing a full species then you are in for a lot of fun/stress/looking. Some species are small but there are some that have a large amount of items. The more popular the species, the more items they seem to have. Korbats are even that popular and we have over 200 items! Before you start a species gallery, be aware that some of the items can get expensive/unfindable especially if they are old code items or r99s. But, in terms of collecting, I have to say that species galleries are very fulfilling.
2. Colors - You think species are difficult? Colors are worse. And it doesn't even begin with the cost. FINDING all the items of a specific color can take forever and really can take forever to buy them all. I only recommend these for the crazy people xD.
3. Stamps - If you have a backstock of retired stamps then stamp collecting is for you! xD Jk...but expect a lot of wait time once you get to a certain number of stamps. If you are able, I would start with the rarity 101+ stamps...each day these become more rare as more people add them to albums and/or get frozen. Especially those that are from LC prizes--only 250 of those exist sometimes. Another strategy is to collect all that you can of the cheap ones and then work on albums that do not have avatars associated with them. They are often easier to complete! There is a guide listed above to help you with approximate pricing but be aware that stamps fluctuate more than most items.
4. Card/TCG - I have a mediocre card collection and I got a lot of the more expensive ones by restocking them. The they don't get overly expensive until the black, gold and holographic/silver ones. So this may be a good starter collection for those who don't want a gallery right now. TCGs are a different story. The sets that the TCG codes come from are not being produced anymore. This means that the TCGs themselves are not showing up as much. So be prepared for a long arduous battle. There are many people that will take advantage of their apparent "retirement" and inflate them even further. Let's also not forget the two most expensive ones--Chokato and MSPP. Their use as an avatar item makes them even more rare. But if you are passionate about collecting them, do not let this section daunt you. Collect away!
5. Avatars - Everyday in Neopia, 354.532 avatar collectors are born. And everyday someone makes up a new fake statistic and posts it on a petpage. Whatever the number, there are a lot of avatar collectors on the site. And why not? They are shiny, sometimes animated and they give you a bit of personalization on the boards. The only advice I can give is to work hard and have fun. Make sure you get those seasonals when they come around! Participate in site events! And above all...if you wish to be lent items, you WILL need to work on your account in areas other than avatars. A disclaimer though...just because you have a nice account, that doesn't mean you should ever demand to be lent.
6. World - World galleries can be fun. You will most likely never have a lack of items to buy. They have books, petpets, weapons, TCGs, etc. If you cannot pick a specific item to collect or even a species you like, the world gallery is a good choice for you since it encompasses so many different items! A good place to look if you want to see the scope of a world gallery is by choosing one of the "Galleries of Neopia" a band of world collectors who are linked together. Go here and you can click the links to the other galleries in the group by world.
7. Games - Game galleries can sometimes be small and boring if you are not careful. For example, if I chose to do a turmac roll gallery, there are very few turmac roll items. This is where your creativity comes in. You can add other things to fill up spaces like the actual petpet (all colours), the berries that you can collect in the game, various plants and stumps that you may encounter in the game, holes and pits, other things that "roll" and so on! The possibilities are endless! If this is not for you, you can always do more than one game (kinda like a this game vs. that game) or even an all encompassing "game item" gallery. These can vary in price and are usually fun!
These are not all of the possible themes but it should give you a good start. If you need to talk a theme out feel free to neomail on my main (x_seabee_x) and I will be happy to discuss with you things like creativity, price of a gallery and anything else! If you are adamant about a theme and you are a bit slower at earning NPs then never fear! There are many ways to earn faster and it doesn't always require a fast connection. Here are some ways:
1. Games - You do not have to be at the top of all the High Score Tables in order to make nps from games. Playing mutiples games 3 times a day can acrue a good amount. I have even seen people make the bulk of their NPs with games. The best games to try are the sponsor games, as they normally give out the most NPs with the least effort. A good game guide and listing can be found here.
2. Restocking - Contrary to popular belief, it does not take a fast connection. I used to restock on dial-up and even restocked an item worth 8 mil then. The key is to know your shop(s). Pick a place that you know the value of items. Tarla has made restocking tricky by deflating items, but you can get rid of that problem by keeping track of her items here. I have included some restocking guide links at the bottom of the page if you would like to learn!
3. Stocks - Stocks are the 3rd major way of making NPs. I don't know as much about that, so I am going to direct you to this guide or this guide for more information.
4. Auction Sniping, Wiz Sniping and Reselling - This is the last way of NP making that I will cover. I have heard that sniping can be very profitable. Here is a nice short explaination on sniping. The biggest tip I can give is to choose a certain group of items to snipe and resell that you know the value of...paintbrushes, nerkmids, neggs, map pieces...there are many items you can snipe to resell!
Matching your theme with your neobudget can create a relatively stress-free collecting environment...unless you are exhilarated by the difficulty of finding an item you can afford xD! Of course, learning new ways to make NPs can be as rewarding as the collecting itself!
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FILLING THE COLLECTION
This is the best part of collecting! Most people start with the least expensive items and work their way up. This is not always the best way to do it! Assuming that you made a list of items, take a look at the rarities of your items. For the most part, r99+ are going to be the most expensive. R99 and r100 items restock, but not as much as those below. If you happen to see a r99 item mass stocking, buy it as soon as you can, as you will find a good deal. Also, going for the more expenisve items is good if you have a lot of neofriends that gift you! Before I go on, I am in no way saying that you should require your friends to buy you anything. That is not what makes a friend. And if you beg and then blame my guide, I will be very upset. There...anyway, having a wishlist of nice but cheap items for your gallery can not only keep your mates updated on your progress but can also provide them with an idea of what to get you! However, if you go full speed into buying the cheap items first, they may not be able to help!
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FINDING HARD-TO-FIND ITEMS
There are bound to be items that are seemingly unavailable. Unbuyable and retired items can be tricky to find. But do not give up so easily. Where there is a will, there is a way. Here are the steps to finding an item:
1. Know the origins of an item. This is mainly for r101 and above, since these items are not restockable. This may help you know why the item is hard to find. The origins of items above r101 are as followed; r101 - Special Items (cove items, certain cooking pot items, petpet paint brushes, test your strength prizes, plot prizes, some contest prizes, some exclusive freebies, painted petpets, and TCG items) ; r103 - Special Items (TCG items, contest items and exclusive freebies) ; r107 - (TCG items, contest items and exclusive freebies) ; r110 - Mega Rare Items (TCG items, contest items and exclusive freebies); r140s - Certain Limited Too Promotion Items; r150 - Paintbrushes, Plot Scarabs, and some other Random Items; r160 - Certain Pick your Own Berries; r175 - Spoppy III; r180 - Retired Items (plot event items, advent, etc.); r200 - Active Hidden Tower Items; r250 - Retired Hidden Tower Items. If you know of any missing rarities or if you know of a better explaination, let me know!
2. Check the Shop Wiz often. You never know what gallery treasures you will find on the wiz if they are normally unbuyable! Unbuyable TCGs can often be sniped very cheap!
3. Restock the restockables! Restocking is not only a good way to make NPs, it can also be a way to get those higher prices items. I know when I was collecting shells that I would stock at the shell shop--I ended up restocking at least one of all 25 shells!
4. Watch the Trading Post often to see if your items show up. Sometimes you can catch an item that is new or hasn't been seen for a while. I found a lot of items that way.
5. Gallery searching is a last and sometimes desperate attempt to find an item. If you must resort to this, please be aware of the following. If someone were to contact me about selling any of my items that are in a theme, I would get really mad. It took me long enough to find it, so why would I sell it? Stay away from asking for items that are part of a themed collection. Look for galleries that are random. However, if the owner states that nothing is for sale, better the heed that warning. Also, many restockers and resellers have "for sale" sections in their galleries since the trading post can only hold so much. Those are good ones to neomail. Please when neomailing, use proper ettiquette and BE NICE!
Using the above methods have helped me to have three of the most complete galleries of their themes (Korbat, Ona and Gooseberry). If you are willing to put forth an effort you will find most of what you are trying to collect. Please note that some items may be really pricey!
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THE PRICE IS RIGHT
Isn't it frustrating when you find an item to buy and it has no price? Or even more frustrating is when you see a price and doubt it's authenticity? Price checks and haggling are your friends! Here are some steps to finding the best price:
1. Gallery Price Checks - Most gallery owners (not all) do not mind if you ask them how much they paid for an item. Remember to be nice and to the point. Flattery may help but don't be fake. Be aware that they may have bought their items long ago and the prices may have inflated or deflated.
2. Neoboard Price Checks - You may get a more current price on some items by making a price check board. My favorite place is the Battledome Chat. A LOT of restockers and resellers chat there, so even if the item in question is not a weapon, odds are someone will know the price. If you are a premium user, the Charter Chat is another nice board to try. The same rules apply...BE NICE!
3. New Items - If you are like me, you like to buy new items as soon as they start restocking. However, if you are working with a limited budget, like I am xD, you cannot always buy the first one on the neomarket. Sometimes it is better to wait on buying the newer items and focus on the established items--especially in the cases where the item has a low rarity! Sometimes if it is a low rarity and new, some sellers may be willing to sell low, but don't count on it happening often since some count on new items to make NPs. So it is good to keep track of what is relatively new!
4. Haggling - Oh haggle, how I love thee! I will let you in on a secret. The honest sellers on the site will usually give the best price if they know it will stay on the account...so collectors rejoice! Always when haggling with a seller, be nice and don't insult them. Just because you collect, does not mean you can pay 800 NPs for an 800,000 NP item. However on the flip side, don't let your desire for the item lead you to overpaying either. There are some sellers that like to try and charge MORE if you are a collector. That is why price checks are good! I once had a seller quote a price of 7 million NPs on a korbat item I wanted. This person saw my collection and decided to take advantage! I had a friend neomail about the same item and was quoted a price of 4 million NPs.
Be careful and kind and you will find a good price!
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MAKING A LAYOUT
Omg *cringes* this is my least favorite part of gallery collecting. However, if you are thinking of entering the spotlight or just if you want to feel as if you have done your best to showcase your gallery, even a simple layout is necessary. I am not the one to be teaching coding, so I won't even attempt it. In my links section, I will have coding help pages, as well as premade layouts. Don't ever be ashamed to use a premade, just know that you MIGHT be less likely to win the Gallery Spotlight. This section is a list of dos and don'ts for making a layout.
DON'T
- Use overly bright colors that render the viewer blind.
- Include too many busy or animated images.
- Use animated backgrounds unless they are subdued.
- Use tiny text that users cannot read.
- Use text that is too closely coloured with the background.
- Use chatspeak in the description.
- Write descriptions that put your reader to sleep.
DO
- Use colors that match well.
- Include clear images.
- Use images that complement your theme.
- Write enticing descriptions that keep the reader engaged.
Below is an example of a layout I would never visit again. Please note that I was a bit extreme to prove that this should never be done.
Some nice examples can be found here (gosh I am humble eh?), here, here, and here. Yes I made some of those layouts other than my own but I had to include examples :(. In no instance should you incessantly neomail someone to make you a layout and in most instances you shouldn't neomail a complete stranger to make one. Often times they will say if they are making layouts for others or not. I know that I don't take requests anymore because it take SO long to code for me. If you are hopeless with coding, you can also use the catergory preset forms here. This way you can have simple colors and backgrounds with very little effort. Remember to check my links for coding help and premades!
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ORGANIZATION
No one wants to see a jumbled mess of items leering at them from the computer screen. GET SOME ORDER FOR GOODNESS SAKE! Seriously though, having some kind of order makes people want to see your items--if you put effort into your gallery, they will put effort into visiting it! There are many ways to order your gallery!
Color - Some galleries look great when organized by color. This mostly works if you do not have catergories but you can have color coordinated categories.
Item Groups - The most common way to organize a gallery is to put groups of items together (ex. foods, plushies, books). This works well with or without categories!
Alphabetically - I always thought that alphabetical ordering would look a mess. I was recently proven wrong on this point so anything is possible! The gallery in question was actually more of a combo alphabetical/item groups gallery. The theme was petpet foods and the food were grouped by species and the species were in alphabetical order! This is not used very often but it may work perfectly with your theme.
Release Date - If you want to be totally crazy you can order the items by date of release. I have in fact seen this ONE TIME. The user had a gallery that showcased the first 500 items released. The reason it is easier than it sounds is because every item has an ID number. This gives you a way to order them.
Combination - If you want to try another way, why not combine two ways of organization. For example, Katherine has a WONDERFUL plushie gallery and her main category is the basic colored plushies. Each column is a certain color and each row is a different species in alpha order! This is a great example of where alphabetical organization work very well. She also has shown a perfect example of how to make even rows...if there isn't a basic color for one of the species, she uses an item to hold the place--omelettes!
Which ever way you decide to organize, just remember to have fun with it! And just a note if you decide to use the category feature. It is a good idea to organize your gallery both in your categories but all in the "view all" option. It makes it look nicer if a user wants to see all your items at once!
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GALLERY SPOTLIGHT
So you think your gallery is the bomb and you want to try out for the ever elusive site spotlight *BRING ON THE TRUMPETS* That is all well and good, but do you have what it takes to get chosen? Now I know that sometimes it may seem really random what gets chosen for the spotlight but here are my tips that may help you get an edge on those other collectors! Call it my "pyramid checklist" if you will--the top parts are the most important, but don't count out the bottom...they also hold up the other parts ;)
1. Description - No I am not talking about the description text in your gallery. When you go to enter your gallery, they require you to enter a description for your gallery. MAKE THIS COUNT! Compare it to a poogle search. When you use a search engine, you first search keywords. That brings up a list of links that fit those words based on text within the sites. It is my belief (this may be wrong) that they initially search through the descriptions for keywords that fit the theme they want. So in the beginning, your layout, content, atc. may not even matter. Use as many vivid and varied adjectives/nouns/verbs as you can! Have fun with it! Be silly! For example: If I have a korbat gallery (haha) then I would use the regular tag words like korbat and bat, but I also might want to include wings, flying, flapping, spooky, batty, scary, halloween, sonar, beasts, creatures...even mention items that are in your gallery like morphing potions, cards, toys. The list is endless. Here is my gallery spotlight so that you can see my description. Please keep in mind this was in 2005 so not only has the layout to the site changed, but also most of my layout images are gone. Just pay attention to the description ;)
2. Originality - After your gallery comes up in a search, it is my belief that they then look for original themes. This may not be the case if they have a holiday coming up, (ex. Korbat Day) but it doesn't hurt! Even if the theme matches a holiday, you can still be unique with your theme!
3. Content - I heard somewhere that "content is king." Well according my guide description is king, but content will still help you! If two galleries are in the running for spotlight, yours and another, then you have to rely on content! If you are missing 50% of the items for your theme and they are only missing 25%, then odds are that they are going to choose the bigger of the two. Now I realize that you may have all of the expensive items and they only have the cheap ones, but the spotlight judges are not going to price everything. Just remember that when you are entering.
4. Layout - And down here in lonely number four is the layout. Let's be honest, this is not the lookup spotlight and this is not the gallery layout spotlight (I think they should start one!). So while layout does help in the end, it is NOT what you should base your entry on! Yes, it will catch their eye when they look at it. Yes, it does help to have a nice layout. But if they see a layout that is beautiful, but the gallery only has like two items, they won't choose it (unless they are that hurting for a spotlight).
Now I can't be 100% sure that is how they choose a Spotlight winner, but I believe that is how I got in :D so if you choose to use this method and you get chosen, please let me know so I can see that it works for others!
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HELPFUL LINKS
Here are some useful links related to galleries!
Gallery Directories
Coding Help
Pre-made Gallery Layouts
Restocking Guides
Other Collecting Guides
MAIL ME TO ADD YOURS
PLEASE let me know if you have any other links to add!
Well I hope you enjoyed my guide to collecting. If you have ant questions, comments, or additions, please feel free to neomail me on my MAIN account, x_seabee_x. Thank you for stopping by! If you'd like to link to this page, please use one of the buttons below!
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