Buying "lots" for trading?

[paintnolish]

The dcs would like to trade this trip. Until this point, all pins purchased have sentimental value and I don't want them traded. What do I need to know about buying a "lot" specifically for trading? What is a good price? What should I look out for? How many does each child need?
Thanks for your help. Ds, particularly, will enjoy this. He loves talking to other people!

 

[paintnolish]

Shameless, self-serving bump!

 

[WDWRocksMySocks]

Be cautious when buying lots on eBay. I've done it, and always had pretty good luck. I've only bought one lot that did not show exactly what pins I was getting. They were fine. A good price online is about $2/pin w/ shipping. But, those lots are usually grab-bags and you don't know what you'll wind up getting. A lot of people debate on whether or not these lots contain scrappers (fake pins) or not. I've bought about 4 different lots, and have never been able to tell the difference.

I'd suggest checking the feedback, but even that doesn't always help as people don't know if what they get is real or fake.

I'd get at least 10/each to trade, if not more. Last trip, I took about 50 with me (we were there for about 5 days and I'm excessive). So, that's up to you and how much you think they'll enjoy trading.

 

[pindecisive]

I use Pin Pics and look up every single pin offered in pin lots and don't buy lots that don't have pictures.

I also usually don't buy lots bigger than 10.

I tend to go more for the approach of spending 3 dollars a pin and buying pins that someone else would want. I don't like Mickey, but someone else may and thus I buy pins someone would want to trade for.

It's fine if you don't want the pins, but buying cheap, "crappy" pins and flooding the lanyards with them ruins the spirit of the game.

So I'd say finding a good seller who charges a fair 2-3 dollar price on ebay would be the best way to buy pins before going to disney.

 

[meliss8599]

DD9 loves to trade so I bought a lot of 50 pins off of eBay before our last, 8-day trip. She really likes to trade and I think she ended up trading all but 12 of them--and she stops to trade w/everyone she can so I think 50 is a good amount to bring.

I agree with PP's that under $2/pin (which includes the shipping cost) is a great price and pretty easy to find off of eBay. I've bought from sellers who didn't have pictures of the exact pins for sale but who have had high, positive feedback and haven't had a problem. Best of luck to you!

 

[junebugTN]

I would agree with the posters who suggested you don't go lower than $2-3 per pin. The large lots, especially ones without pics, almost always contain scrappers or fakes. My DD wound up with a few fakes on our last trip to Disney. I think people buy the cheap pins and some CMs don't check closely or don't realize; then unsupecting kids get stuck with fake pins. And with all the lead in cheap imported kids jewelry, I hate to think I could be passing that along to the kiddies...eeeek!

It's worth it to me to spend the extra money to know that I'm spreading Disney magic by not trading the extra cheap pins. I hope this doesn't sound judgemental...I don't mean it to. Just wanted to share another opinion.