I am trying to learn about pin trading. I have read that it is a good idea to get a lot/grab bag of pins online to start with to take to the parks to trade. But several of the sellers I see on ebay that are selling lots instead of individual pins are ones that are "red listed" on here. I don't need fancy/rare pins, just ones that would be acceptable to trade in the parks for my son. Any suggestions/recommendations for sellers who have a reasonably priced grab bag for trading?
If you're already familiar with scrappers, then ignore the first part of this post, but in case you are not, I'll just quickly go through it.
Scrappers: For some folks this matters, for others it does not. You'll need to decide which camp you are in before you get heavily into pin trading. Basically a scrapper is a pin that looks legitimate, but is not. I think there are three types of scrappers:
- It can be a factory overrun (i.e., the factory was contracted to make 1 million, but they made 1.1 million instead),
- It can be a pin that has some kind of error that should have been "scrapped", or
- It can be a pin that is a knockoff or a fake design.
The first type (factory overrun) is nearly impossible to distinguish from the ones you buy in the parks. The other types can (sometimes) be distinguished because because the colors are weird/off (e.g., Ariel with blonde hair or Belle's yellow gown is green), the back stamp (e.g., the copy right) is wrong/missing/damaged, or parts of the pins design is missing (e.g., no eyes on the character). Others say you can tell because they feel "rough" or the edges are sharp/pronounced. Sadly, there is no sure fire way to tell a scrapper.
If you're going to be trading the parks with the CMs, you
will end up with scrappers in your collection. I would estimate that between 50% and 75% of the pins on CM lanyards are scrappers. So if you really dislike scrappers, I would avoid trading with CMs.
In general, when buying on eBay, if you want to avoid scrappers, I would look for sellers that are selling pins that are still on their backing card or in their original packaging. Many scrapper sellers sell loose pins without any original packaging. While not foolproof, another red flag is price. If you're buying pins for less than a couple of dollars each, they're probably scrappers. If they're going for $0.50-$1.00 each, those will almost always be scrappers
and they're likely to be the ones that are obviously bad (e.g., no eyes, Belle's gown is the wrong color, etc.).
In terms of trading, in most cases, the CMs will trade regardless of whether a pin is a scrapper or not. So you can buy scrappers and as long as they meet the basic requirements (i.e., not damaged, has the Disney copyright, etc.), the CMs will accept it in trade. That is why the CM lanyards are full of scrappers. That's also the crux of the argument for and against scrappers and trading: those that dislike scrappers feel they cheapen the trading and make it not worthwhile. Those that don't care, tend to say that they like the pin, so it doesn't really matter if it's a scrapper or not (they also say that if you can't tell, does it really matter?). Both points are valid. It's something to think about
before you get into trading.
