Does that mean that I shouldn't give my highest scoring bugs first?
Yes. If you want to get as many items as you can get you should start off weak.
I'm also concerned that if I give lower quality bugs that I'll get lower quality furniture, or will Nat always give you a piece of the Bug set regardless?
How it works is until you meet a certain point level (it was 80 points for me) you will get normal furniture from him every time you break the record. After you break that level of 80? points, each new record after that (including the first) will yield another bug furniture.
So I'm not even entirely sure I can direct the outcome the way I want to but I'd like to try. What should I do to guarantee the most pieces of Bug furniture?
Bugs are graded by three things: rarity (easiest to "manipulate" but you have to find the right bugs), relative length (the game tells you this right when you catch the bug, if you can sort your bugs of the same type by length) and luster/color (this is random and there is no indication of luster until you give it to nat). To maximize the bug items you get, start with not-so-rare bugs and work your way to the rarer ones, working in order of size when you have a bunch of the same bug.
Rarity can roughly be measured by how often you see a bug around. Common butterflies are super common, tiger butterflies are uncommon, emperor butterflies are sort of rare, Raja B butterflies are quite rare, as an example.
Note that the bug off is held monthly, and you probably won't get all bug items in one month. Personally I only managed to get two (I could have gotten more though).
Also not that at the end you'll get a ribbon based on performance. You get a ribbon based on placement, not on how many bugs/furniture you've gotten. A single, high scoring bug will get you a gold ribbon.
The Animal Crossing: New Leaf catalog is accessable from a machine within T&T Mart and later upgrades to that store, and includes:
- Furniture
- Wallpaper
- Flooring
- Shirts
- Pants
- Dresses
- Hats
- Glasses
- Shoes/Socks
- Umbrellas/Parasols
- Stationary
- Music
- Gyroids*
- Fossils*
That said, all items that are available in the catalog are not necessarily available for order. In some cases, this is true for entire classes of objects -- marked with a * above. Some rare furniture (such as furniture you earn as an achievement or receive through a special event) cannot be ordered. I will not list them all here, but some general guidelines:
- Nintendo items cannot be ordered
- Special Event items cannot be ordered
- "Achievement" items cannot be ordered
- Items dropped from balloons cannot be ordered
- Items obtained from the island cannot be ordered
- Certain DLC sets, like the 7-11 series, cannot be ordered. There are some exceptions to this. I'll keep a running list here and edit it as I find out more.
The following DLC sets can be ordered from the catalog:
- American Best Buy DLC. So far, the Raccoon Wall Clock is available for order from the catalog for 1,920 bells. We can probably assume that the remaining Best Buy DLC will also be orderable, but we will need to wait to confirm that as they are only released every 2 weeks.
- American Spotpass Content
- Japanese "Campus" Set
As to your second question -- yes, all you have to do to get an item in your catalog is to hold it. "Holding" is fairly popular in online AC trading right now. I've seen players trade fairly valuable items for the opportunity to "hold" entire furniture sets, or Japanese DLC items. Players do this so that they can fill out and complete their catalog.
Best Answer
Yes, the Nooklings store will never sell any furniture item that you cannot order via a catalog. Similarly all items in the Able Sisters shop can be ordered, even "Nintendo" items from them like the Lil' Bro's Hat.
Also note that items found in balloons are often unique; the "balloon" set cannot be ordered from Nooklings' either, just "normal" furniture items (if balloons even still drop that stuff). When in doubt you can always check the catalog itself, it will say "Not For Sale".