I posted some of this post on another thread, but added to it here and thought it was pertinent to this thread!
Be very careful about getting involved in this hobby! I have been buying and trading pins for a year and a half and I am totally addicted. I now have well over 2500 pins in my collection and many dupes and traders. Let's just say this little *hobby* of mine has cost me a LOT!!!!! I have spent anywhere from .99 to over $500.00 for a single pin! It adds up. Since I do not live near the Parks and tho we do go to DL sometimes 3 times per year and WDW once per year, I end up bidding and buying for most of my desired collectibles on eBay. I am finally starting to drift away from buying. I find that I have *almost* every pin that I want in my really desired categories, (Beauty and the Beast, Belle and Walt pins mostly) but I am still buying and bidding because of the habit and I see pins I like, not neccesserily REALLY want, but because they are *cute* or a particular character or whatever, because it's a durn PIN, I HAVE to bid or buy!
I am addicted and I just now am feeling that I don't want to buy so much, but am having a hard time stopping. We will be on vacation to Florida, (18 days of that at WDW) for the whole month of May and we do NOT have a laptop. I will NOT be anywhere near a computer and will not be going near eBay. This may be just the thing I need to stop the habit. I am excited because I will get to buy some WDW pins (LOL) from the Flower and Garden Show to commemorate our trip and that is what I used to do with pins, just bought them to commemorate a trip. That is what I want to get back to!
I do trade on my trips but find that most of the really good traders and ALL the Cast Lanyard pins are gone just after the Park (DL) opens. The pin sharks there grab up everything and then by the time we get there, all I find is a bunch of booster set pins or cheap stuff on the CMs lanyards. So trading for me is not all that much fun.
I take a full pinbag with me and often I will find a few good trades with other traders, but mostly I give pins away to kids. If I am meeting friends at the Park, I will usually let them go through my bag and pick out 5 pins they want and give them to them. I also give pins to CMs as a gift or a thank you. I still can't believe how many I have even after doing that for many visits.
The kids, CMs and my friends just love these little presents and I love doing it. I am not going to do some jacked-up trade with a pin shark just to get what I want and give them more than I know the pin is worth. It is more fun to give them to kids or CMs.
I had one little girl at the traders meet look through my book and find a great LE, the Lady and the Tramp Bella Note scene with Stitch, it was one of my dupes and bless her heart she had very little to trade, so I gave it to her. Why not? She was beaming and I was trying to find a new home for the pin anyway...
To me pin trading and collecting should be fun, not like the sharks that try to get everything good for themselves or to sell on eBay. When it becomes an obsession like the Power Traders you see sitting out in DtD with their 10 bags and they are there EVERY day like clockwork, it is time to get a life. I am trying to just get BACK to the point where we would pick up pins on each of our trips as a memento of that particular trip. That is how it started for me. Then I HAD to have ALL the pins in that character or that subject and it became an obsession to get EVERY single pin of B&tB. I am almost there, but I don't care anymore. I am tired of trying to track down every pin I want. I want it to be fun again. The only way I can do that is to just hang onto whay I really, really like and get those memento pins and STAY AWAY FROM eBay!!!!
I have collected so many different subjects that I have more pins than I need. I started with Tinkerbell, have collected Mickey and Minnie, Bambi, Park pins, attraction pins, Princesses, Pooh, Eeyore, Chip and Dale, anything with a photo of Walt and I have been building my Goofy collection. It goes on and on.
I have a wonderful collection of Very Rare LE pins in lots of categories. These are the ones that I have spent 100.00 and up for. That is a beautiful collection that I will keep. But my biggest collections are Beauty and the Beast/Belle and the Little mermaid/Ariel and the Pins with Walt Disney on them. Those collections I will keep for a very long time. My Beauty and the Beast collection is not just pins, but every figurine, litho, sericel, plush, book, movie, CD, toy, etc...etc...they made on the subject.
I also collect Disney memorabilia of any sort that I like. My house is a friggen Disney museum. LOL! It really is. Walls covered with framed Pin sets, lithos, plates, every surface has WDCC and Lenox and other figurines and snowglobes...oh the snowglobes...that is a whole nother story! I have Disney bedding, and towels...you name it...it is in my house. I love Disney!
But the biggest thing is the pins...I need to start to clear out some of the pins.
As for how much I have spent on pins..I started bidding and buying on eBay February of 2007 and I have spent at the very least $75,000.00 and most likely it is higher than that. You read that right. It is probably more but I know that I have spent in the 6 figures for all my Disney memorabilia in the last year alone and much of that was pins!
BE CAREFUL! It is very addictive and several of my friends have gotten into serious financial trouble because of their addiction to pins. I am not kidding. I am financially fortunate, so that it did not get me into too much trouble, but I did get into some jams with it. My hubby had to put me on an allowance due to my pin buying getting out of control. That was after being allowed to spend whatever I wanted and sometimes it was 20 grand a month on pins! YES on pins! So just be careful. There are many folks who are in that boat. I have met them and they sometimes wish they had never discovered pins.
It can be a very serious addiction or you can keep it fun. I want to get back to fun. My pins are just sitting around my house right now in bags and boxes. I don't have enough room to display them all. So I will be downsizing my collection to what I REALLY want to keep and trying to sell all the rest. I want it to be fun again, picking up pins on our trips and staying away from eBay altogether. That will be so great!
It's so addictive though. I said I would only spend about $30 on pins on our trip, but I wound up spending at least $75. It becomes an obsession!!! My mom is currently in WDW and she just bought a few for me last night and the CM actually gave her a green monorail pin from the cast lanyard series w/o trading. She told the CM that her daughter loved pin trading and the CM just gave it to her. I was so excited!
?!) of pins later I am still at it. I more often then not will buy a pin thinking oh this will be a good trader and wind up keeping it for myself.
