Gold Magnet

Gold Magnet is a plant that is the upgraded form of the Magnet-shroom which costs $3000 to buy the seed packet from Crazy Dave's Twiddydinkies and costs 50 sun to plant, along with the 100 sun the Magnet-shroom costs. Every five seconds, it collects up to five pieces of money on-screen, saving the player's time and allowing them to focus on attacking. It can attract both coins and diamonds, which is helpful for making money.

Suburban Almanac entry
Gold Magnet

Gold Magnets collect coins and diamonds for you.

Must be planted on magnet-shrooms

"How did I end up here?" asks Gold Magnet. "I was on the fast track - corner office, full benefits, stock options. I was gonna be Vice President of Midwestern Operations. Now I'm here, on this lawn, in serious danger of being eaten to death. Ooh! A coin!"

Cost: 50

Recharge: very slow

Usage
Gold Magnet costs 50 sun to plant, and must be planted on an existing Magnet-shroom (a Magnet-shroom costs 100 sun). Magnet-shroom does not have to be awake, because Gold Magnet is not a mushroom. When there are coins or diamonds on the field, it charges for approximately five seconds, collecting all coins and diamonds on all the field.

On iOS or Nintendo DS versions, Gold Magnet should rarely be used, as it is not as time consuming and difficult to touch all the coins in sight with the touchscreen compared to clicking them with a mouse. However, it can still come in handy, especially for simply automating the process.

Note: Gold Magnets do not have ferro-magnetism, meaning that they cannot collect any other metal objects other than money. They do not behave like Magnet-shrooms at all, not taking away buckets, pogo sticks, ladders, and other metallic objects from zombies. Thus, the player should only plant a Gold Magnet if large volumes of money are being dropped, as they are otherwise useless due to the fact they cannot pick up metal objects used by zombies.

Strategies
Due to their automatic money collection ability, Gold Magnets are best paired with Marigold, since the latter reliably generates money every 24 seconds. It is not wise to plant a Coffee Bean on a Magnet-shroom before upgrading it, as Gold Magnet is not a mushroom and does not sleep in the daytime, thus wasting 75 sun. There are existing gold-farming strategies that exploit several Marigolds producing money while the enemy fruitlessly hammers away at the impenetrable outer walls, especially in Last Stand.

When gold farming, it is recommended to use them to collect the large amount of coins that Marigolds give to the player.

Trivia

 * It, and Blover are the only two plants with a three-beat cycle, making three bounces while going from one side to the other.
 * It, Magnet-shroom, Lightning Reed, Electric Blueberry, Citron, E.M.Peach and Electric Currant are the only plants that use some form of electricity.
 * It is one of the three upgrade plants that lose abilities from their downgrades (not being able to grab metal objects from zombies).
 * The others being Cattail (losing the ability for a land plant other than Pumpkin to be planted on it) and Cob Cannon (not firing on its own and not being able to have a Pumpkin planted on it).
 * Although the Magnet-shroom is a mushroom, and needs a Coffee Bean to function during the day, the Gold Magnet is diurnal, and able to function anytime without being woken up before upgrading.
 * It also has a stem and leaves, unlike the Magnet-shroom and other mushrooms. Because of these, it is assumed that the Gold Magnet is not a mushroom.
 * It uses magnetism to pick up silver coins, gold coins, and diamonds despite the fact that silver and gold are non-magnetic metals, and diamonds are not even made of metal.
 * Because it cannot pick up coins or diamonds until they touch the ground, it will still try to pick them up; but the coins will not move, and will remain there.
 * It and Winter Melon are the only two upgrade plants that cost less sun than their original plant.
 * It is the cheapest upgrade plant in the game, costing only 50 sun, maybe because of its little use in battle.
 * Additionally, it is also the cheapest plant in Crazy Dave's Twiddydinkies.
 * It, Chomper, Spikerock, and Grave Buster are the only plants whose names do not involve any plants.
 * It may attempt to collect coins after all the coins on-screen have been cleared by clicking. It will glow, but not attract any coins.
 * On the iPad version's seed packet, its eyebrows are missing.
 * It and Fume-shroom are the only two plants whose Almanac entry states they held a job (Gold Magnet had a corner office and was on the fast track to becoming a high-level executive for a company) before the game.
 * It takes a second to magnetize coins and diamonds while Magnet-shroom instantly grabs metallic objects. The reason for this is because it has to rear back before magnetizing.
 * When it attracts coins, it scrunches up its eyebrows as if it is concentrating.
 * It appears as if it has no eyebrows on its seed packet.
 * In DS and DSi versions, all money Gold Magnet attracts moves at a slower rate than any other version of the game.
 * If the player has more than one Gold Magnet on the lawn, they will only work one at a time, and never two at once.
 * Unlike Magnet-shroom, it does not have to dispose the attracted object.
 * Stinky the Snail in the Zen Garden is similar to Gold Magnet in that they both collect money. Plus, they cost the same ($3000) in Crazy Dave's Twiddydinkies.
 * If one looks closely, it has no eyebrows when it attracts coins or diamonds.
 * If a Gold Magnet gets ready to magnet up a coin and the player picks that coin before it does, it will still show the attracting coins animation, but it will not attract the collected coin.
 * If there are diamonds, gold coins, and silver coins on the screen, the Gold Magnet collects the diamonds first, then the gold coins and finally the silver ones.
 * In Plants vs. Zombies: All Stars, it has no eyebrows and its leaves are straight.
 * This is similar to Magnet-shroom in Plants vs. Zombies 2 which has no eyebrows.