Hi Melissa
When you come down to WDW, this is my personal invitation to you to the Contemporary pin meet on Friday nights, you will be my honored guest since you are a newbie we will be most happy to show you ropes, and yea and pins too, and introduce you to some of the nicest people you have ever met.
The meets on Friday night though unofficial at first, have become so popular that it's now an official event, and information about it is handed out to guests that are checking in.
Kathryn Bell started the pin meets because many people new to pin trading ended up at other places, and got really shark bitten, they got a sour taste in their mouths and quit pin trading all together.
I was one of those people, after meeting Kathryn, we gave it one more try, and well over 1000 pins later here we are.
Don't get me wrong there are lots of nice people down there at the other pin trading stations, I have traded with both sharks and non sharks, but its professional pintrading to the max, with a lot of sharks looking for new prey.
The Friday night pin meets at the Contemporary are very very family oriented, as a matter of fact this Friday I ended up with about a 16 month old boy, the family felt so comfortable that they let him stay with us, and pin traded while me and their son discovered the fine art of popping balloons.
We love new people and love to educate you on the fine art of pins, and if you have never been to Disney World before I offer my services as tour guide (hey any excuse to go to Disney) my family and I will be more than happy to take you around, and even ride the rides with you.
You do like rides like Tower of Terror, Rockin Roller coaster, and river rapids don't you. Hmmmm.
Here are some simple examples of Shark Tatics. Learn them well.
Your DS pins are valuable, and you would be a great target, an example would be a shark showing you some of the new Japanese flex pins, they are very beautiful, but also very common
they will tell everything about the pin except that its common, this is a hard pin to get is the story you will get, and you might trade one or two of you prized pins to get it.
They look through your book if they see nothing of interest they will not even offer to show you their book and brush you off.
They brush off kids to the side thinking they offer nothing of interest.
Beware good pin evil, husband and wife teams, husband is willing to trade but wife starts to complain that this is their favorite pin, then they either start to fight, she gets instantly sad and weepy, you feel bad and offer more pins for her prized pin, or if you want to stop the trade then the show really begins.
Or the famous your pin is not that rare, actually its very common, and not worth much pin, but wait here let me get you a second opinion
Come here total stranger that I have never met with before, (wink wink) look at this pin is it valuable. Hmmm no not at all it's a common nothing pin I throw those away they rust my other pins.