Golden Shovel

[nursekween]

I've been play for a year now and just realized I don't think I ever got the golden shovel from Gulliver. I think you need to help him 30xs before he mails you the DIY? I've definitely helped him more than 30xs so either I got it and accidentally sold the DIY. Anyone have any thoughts?

 

[VanitasFan26]

Well I think if you helped him 30 times then you are suppose to get a mail from him that contains the DIY. If you somehow throw it away I would probably suggest making a new character and try again do it 30 times and then you get the Golden Shovel DIY. I am just going to address the elephant in the room the Gold Shovel can break and there is no way to customize it for its durability.

 

[S.J.]

You're right that you have to help Gulliver 30 times before getting the golden shovel DIY. I think it has to be specifically Gulliver, and not Gullivarr?

It's not a great deal of help, but you can check if you've helped him at least 20 times by seeing if you have all three stamps in the Gulliver's Travails Nook Mile achievement.

I was in the same situation as you! I ended up getting the DIY from TBT because I was doing heavy landscaping and really needed a durable shovel. I was going through at least 12 shovels a day.

 

[Moritz]

I think it has to be specifically Gulliver, and not Gullivarr?

It's not a great deal of help, but you can check if you've helped him at least 20 times by seeing if you have all three stamps in the Gulliver's Travails Nook Mile achievement.

The stamp covers both gulliver and gullivarr so annoyingly can't be used as a great indicator.

 

[nursekween]

If it specially has to be Gulliver vs Gullivarr that makes more sense then. I embarrassingly admit I didn’t even realize they are two different characters until I started looking into this more.

 

[Etown20]

30 times is a lot, especially if you don't time travel.

During the first month(s) of the game, I think he may have appeared once a week. Once they added more visitors (Leif, Redd) and changed the visitor schedule, he only appears once every two weeks, meaning 26 times a year, so it's normal for it to take longer than a year to acquire.

 

[Mick]

I also got the stamp for helping those two before I got my DIY (and before I started keeping track of how many times I helped Gulliver). Eventually I did want to know how many times I still needed to help him, and I did find a way:

What I did was look up a list of Gulliver rewards, then searched for all of those in Nook Shopping to see if they were in my catalog or not. If you haven't traded to obtain any of his items, you can simply count how many show up, because there are 29 unique rewards (with the 30th being the DIY).

Side note, it's surprising how little he shows up when you actually want him for the progress towards the DIY, lol.

 

[azurill]

I also got the stamp for helping those two before I got my DIY (and before I started keeping track of how many times I helped Gulliver). Eventually I did want to know how many times I still needed to help him, and I did find a way:

What I did was look up a list of Gulliver rewards, then searched for all of those in Nook Shopping to see if they were in my catalog or not. If you haven't traded to obtain any of his items, you can simply count how many show up, because there are 29 unique rewards (with the 30th being the DIY).

Side note, it's surprising how little he shows up when you actually want him for the progress towards the DIY, lol.

That’s a great idea. I really should do that myself since I still don’t have the golden shovel. I know of a few things I’m missing but should really check and see how many I’m missing.

 

[kiwikenobi]

I'm still working on getting my golden shovel, and I've been playing every day since last April. The way I've been keeping track of how many times I helped Gulliver is to get a list of all of the items that he gives you, and checking off any that I have. I only need to help him two more times, once to get the last item, and one more after that to get the golden shovel recipe. I think, given the way special visitors work, and the way Gulliver and Gullivarr work, this is a normal amount of time for it to take. It's a little annoying, but at least I don't think anything is glitching or anything like that.

 

[JKDOS]

Going off the idea that an NPC is guaranteed 1 visit biweekly; without time travelling, it will take about 60 weeks max to help Gulliver 30 times unfortunately.

 

[LuchaSloth]

I recently checked my "Gulliver's Travails" accomplishment, and I do indeed have that completed. So...I should finally be getting my golden shovel soon. Don't have any way of knowing if I'm at the low end of 20 or closer to 30...but, it has to be soon, darn it. Lol. It would have been nice if they just gave you the shovel at the same time as the achievement, so you could know exactly how many more you needed.