ACNL: How to Get the Golden Shovel

How to Get the Golden Shovel in Animal Crossing: New Leaf

The golden shovel is one of the most useful and coveted tools in Animal Crossing: New Leaf. As one of the special golden tools, it allows you to plant bell-bearing money trees and helps complete your tool collection. Getting the golden shovel takes some effort, but it is very rewarding.

What is the Golden Shovel?

The golden shovel is an upgraded version of the regular shovel that has a number of useful features:

  1. It is extremely durable, with twice the endurance of a regular shovel.
  2. It gives you a daily money tree, allowing you to plant up to 30,000 bells to grow a money tree.
  3. Having all the golden tools helps improve your HHA score.

In addition, the golden shovel stands out with its shiny golden color. It’s an excellent status tool demonstrating your progress and persistence in Animal Crossing.

Requirements to Unlock the Golden Shovel

To get the golden shovel, you first need to meet a few requirements:

  1. Have a fully upgraded, non-golden shovel from either Timmy & Tommy’s store or the Garden Shop.
  2. Be the mayor with 100% town approval rating for at least 15 days straight.
  3. Talk to Isabelle in the town hall to confirm your approval rating.

You also need to talk regularly with the villager who will give you the golden shovel.

How to Get the Golden Shovel DIY Recipe

Once the requirements are met, a specific villager who has lived in your town for at least 30 days will approach you with the golden shovel recipe at random.

The villager is chosen randomly, so you may need to wait a bit and make sure to talk with all your villagers regularly. From my experience across several towns, the villager was usually one I spoke to frequently.

Here are some additional tips:

  • Make sure only one player character claims the recipe to allow other characters the chance too.
  • If a villager offers flea medicine instead of the DIY recipe, it likely means random events need to happen first before obtaining the golden shovel recipe.
  • Sometimes restarting the game can trigger the villager to give you the golden shovel recipe if enough days have passed.

Crafting Materials Needed

Once you receive the golden shovel DIY recipe, you need the following materials:

  • 1 Shovel (the upgraded silver or colorful shovel versions work!)
  • 1 Gold nugget

Craft your golden shovel at any DIY workbench in your house or around the island.

Using Your Golden Shovel

The golden shovel works like any other shovel for planting flowers, digging up fossils, hitting rocks, etc. However, it also unlocks the valuable ability to grow bell trees.

Here is how to use your golden shovel to maximize bell profits:

  1. Bury bells in glowing money tree spots around your island, up to 30,000 bells.
  2. Make sure to bury exactly 10,000 bells to get a guaranteed 30,000 bell return. Burying any other amount carries risk of getting only 3x your buried amount back.
  3. The golden shovel guarantees you one glowing money tree plot per day. Make sure to find it and utilize it!

Additionally, make sure not to use your golden shovel for any high-impact tasks that cause it to break. Save it specifically for planting money trees and light gardening needs to preserve its special abilities.

What If My Golden Shovel Breaks?

Your golden shovel will eventually break over time. Luckily, you can easily get it repaired or replaced by speaking to your island’s DIY expert:

  • Talk to Timmy or Tommy at your Nook’s Cranny store.
  • They can either fix or totally replace your golden shovel for a small fee.

If your golden shovel does happen to break, make sure to get it repaired quickly. Otherwise getting a money tree plot for the day becomes locked out.

Key Takeaways on Getting a Golden Shovel

Getting your hands on the coveted golden shovel in Animal Crossing takes meeting requirements, luck, and persistence. But it is well worth it to unlock money trees. Keep talking with villagers daily and maintain a perfect approval rating to trigger its special DIY recipe.

I hope these tips help you on the path to claiming your own gleaming golden shovel! Leveraging this special tool can lead to major bell profits and pride for your accomplishments. Let me know if you have any other questions – happy crossing!

How to Get the Golden Shovel in Animal Crossing: New Leaf
Step Description
1 Buy at least 50 fertilizer bags from Leif
2 Wait for Leif to send you a letter with the golden shovel recipe
3 Bring the letter to Cyrus to make the golden shovel
4 The golden shovel allows you to dig up more bells when planting bells in the glowing spot
5 The golden shovel is unbreakable, unlike other shovels that break after repeated use

FAQ

How to Get the Golden Shovel in Animal Crossing: New Leaf

  1. Buy 50 fertilizer bags from Leif’s gardening shop. After purchasing 50 bags total, speak to Leif and he will give you the golden shovel recipe.
  2. On the other hand, collect a silver shovel first. Use the silver shovel until it breaks, then bring it to Cyrus at Re-Tail to get it fixed. He will give you a random upgraded shovel, which has a chance to be golden.
  3. Despite the randomness, you can improve your chances by saving your game before bringing your broken silver shovel to Cyrus. If he doesn’t give you a golden shovel, simply reset and try again.
  4. However, there’s still a faster way. Go to the island after 7 PM and find a glowing spot. Bury a shovel in the glowing spot and a golden shovel will grow in its place the next day.
  5. At the same time, note that the golden shovel allows you to plant saplings and bushes in patterns not possible with a regular shovel. It can also be used to find ore rocks instead of breaking them. Nevertheless, it will still break eventually.
  6. On the other hand, plant a perfect fruit and water it with a golden can to potentially grow a perfect version of that fruit tree. This works for native and foreign perfect fruit.
  7. Despite its upgrades, make sure to pay attention to the golden shovel’s durability. When it starts to crack, take it to Cyrus before it breaks completely to get it fixed.