Is Pin Trading worth it for the kids or a hassle?

[newestkg06]

Even if you don't want to take pins to the park, there are good trading spots. At wilderness lodge, they brought out a pin board in the lobby each day, and they loved to check it out. We also took their lanyards to restaurants, and they traded in the gift shops or lobbied while we waited for our table. The Contemporary had lots of good trading in the gift,shops while we waited for Chef Mickey.

I didn't know that you could do it at the resort and that they had boards. That's pretty cool. We're going to be taking too much with us into the parks already, so I thought that would be something easy to scratch off the list. Maybe we will get some cheap ones on Ebay to trade just at the resort though. Thanks for that info!

 

[klo1335]

Has anyone bought pins from ebay? I was considering doing that to get started.

I was cautioned against this because a lot of the pins are scrappers. There are groups on Facebook that explain the whole pin trading process and people on the board are big time traders and sellers. That being said, I got some nice pins to get my daughters sets started through this site. https://www.facebook.com/groups/disneypintrading.selling/

I do know that there are some recommended sellers on ebay that only have authentic disney pins and not scrappers. While it wouldn't bother my kids, I would hate for them to trade a $10 pin for a cheap scrapper pin.

 

[Cassarye]

I have bought from Ebay and all the pins I got are authentic.

 

[StirlingSilver83]

I bought my son all sorts of pins for our trip last year (he was 7) but he didn't really seem into it. He didn't really even notice the different cast members wearing different pins on the lanyards. Maybe this trip he will notice and want to do the pin trading

 

[Ratpack]

My kids love it and so do I. It is like a treasure hunt for them, just to see what they can get.

 

[Lavitz]

Has anyone bought pins from ebay? I was considering doing that to get started.

I've bought twice, impressed with the quality I got.

Thing is yes you will get some "fakes" in a lot, but the problem is they are so common (and such good quality since they're made in the same factory) that when your kids trade at WDW they will be most likely be getting fakes in return regardless. It didn't make sense to me to buy $10 pins at WDW and have them all traded for $0.50 pins. So we buy a few pins at WDW to keep, and use the ebay pins to trade. Yes I'd prefer if only authorized pins were used, but even hardcore collects say it is often difficult/impossible to separate the two so there's no chance for CMs to regulate this.