mystery pins

[Happy Birthday Cat]

ok, do people actually know in advance when and where mystery pins will be? I've been doing heavy pin trading and collecting for three years now, and i've yet to be in the right place at the right time. i was just down there in feb. when the chip n dale surprise pin came out and never knew about it until i got home. any tips on how to score these illusive pins?

 

[Obi-Wan Pinobi]

Sometimes it's knowing people with information. Many people have phone chains going, where someone at home will call someone vacationing at WDW or DLR to let them know about the mystery pins.

Sometimes it's also a matter of getting information from the CMs. The supertraders or the CMs at the pin carts (particularly the major pin carts) aren't going to come right out and say "yeah, there will be a mystery pin released at X time on X day," but you might get vague hints from them that will point you in the right direction.

 

[Raulandpinboy]

Word travels mostly by word of mouth, and our massive network of email, and Nextel phones. I have been at work, at play, in the car, at dinner, at Disney, and even in the bathroom (let it go now!!!) when my phone has rung and its someone telling me a mystery pin has been released.

The weirdest was when I was in a meeting with the Disney folks at Celebration designing the new high school, my phone rang and it was Donna telling me about surfing Mickey at the boardwalk, I told her I was in a meeting and could not make it, the Disney group overheard me and postponed the meeting while we all drove down to the boardwalk and got the pin.

Honestly the information mostly comes from up north those people that have Dizpins or the Dis on their screens 24/7 and have timed it so that they can go to the bathroom in-between screen refreshes, well they monitor the sites religiously and always no matter what you can be assured if a mystery pin is released it will be on the boards in less than 30 minutes. The information comes from people lucky enough to be there, castmembers that finally got the word, a few strategically placed moles inside Disney, or from Disney themselves. Do you think that Disney would ever release a pin and not tell anybody?

Unlike in California where for a bit they would release a mystery pin every Thursday at 7:30 pm at the pin station located at such and such, we here don’t have it that clean we have to work for our mystery pin.

Sometimes we get lucky and a Castmember will leak it out a night before the release and tell us to be here, or there and wait for a surprise, but most of the time they themselves don’t know about it until it happens.

Bottom line everybody loves fame and wants to be first, so if they spot or get wind of a mystery pin word will leak out, somebody gets a call, and it snowballs from there. Never has anybody been greedy and not spilled the beans about a mystery pin. The word gets out no matter what.

Thanks to Nextel and the two-way radio network we have down here we can spread the word faster than it takes to make toast. And since most of us either live or work 15 minutes from Disney we can get there, get the pin and split in less than ½ an hour.

Now there is reason why we get these calls from up north, because somebody wants the pin, and we know that. If I get a call from say a pin trader who just saw the Tinkerbell twirler pin as a mystery pin being released today. They will most likely be calling because they would like me to pick them up one as well, and I don’t have a single problem with that. I got one and they got one at cost (this is only fair) some will insist that you cover their gas and time (that’s just wrong you are going there to get it anyway)
And I do get lots of calls from people that do not want the pin just want to be the first to let us know.

Here is an example the last Pooh pin released at the sports complex, I got a call from Donna, who got a call from up north, from somebody that saw it on the web. I then took a lunch break and headed to Disney. While in the car I Nexteled Bob, Ken, and few others on my list, now I am one of the few lucky enough to have email capabilities in my car so I have a little distribution list called pin traders, some are in Disney some are out, so while in the car I send a broadcast that reads “mystery pin sports complex pooh LE1000” Donna in the mean time has been calling some friends, and by the time I arrived at the sports complex I was greeted by several friend all the there arriving almost at the same time.

Here is the best part I don’t even collect pooh, but got the pin for Winnie who was at the time stuck on the east coast, I gave her the pin on Friday and got a hug, a kiss and a chocolate Mickey head for my troubles, so I made out like a bandit on the deal.

Best advise to give you is make as many friends as you can down here, ask them if its okay if you can call them to let them know about a mystery pin should you ever be lucky enough to be the first to find the information, and let them know your likes when it comes to pins if you make a good enough friend down here they will get you the pin just because they know you like and collect it. Be wary of those that want more than the pin is worth, like asking you for gas cost or money for their time, those are in it for the profits not the friendship. Also accept the fact that somebody else got their first and since we are only allowed two pins each, if we got a call from someone else we may be already on our way to get them a pin.

Watch the boards and create a huge buddy list. Or watch this board from time to time I put up mystery pins at cost, for all those stuck up north, unfortunately I cant do that anymore I have to put them on auction, but I do give away pins and can still do that.

And last but not least sometime even we cannot get the pin. We did not get the Chip and Dale because we were just too busy to go get it so remember it happens.