Pin "Collections"; experiences last week

[Pan's Dad]

Well, I am not a serious "pin trader" as most of you seem to be; however, during our last two visits to WDW (2000 and just last week), myself and my 9 yr old daughter and ESPECIALLY my eight yr old son, have enjoyed collecting and trading pins - I recently purchased a pin book and have filled it (100 pins) -

Before we visited last week, I purchased a boxed set of Cinderella pins for I believe $8 for both my kids...they contained 3 pins (Cinderella, Prince Charming and the Mice) and were separate, unconnected pins. My kids just like trading with the CM's at WDW. Before we left, I inquired on this board whether the kids could separately trade these pins and one of the board moderators stated yes they could "as long as they were not connected and stood alone and were Disney pins". Anyway, during our first day at MK, they each traded a few pins, including the Cinderella pins with the CM with no problems...

the next day we went to MGM and two unique things happened...first. as we went towards Who Wants to be a Millionaire, we saw a big line forming under the Sorcerer's 100 Yr Hat..my brother and I looked at each other wondering what was under the hat that was so good but we continued on to Millionaire to use FASTPASS...during our wait, my son went up to a CM and asked to trade his Prince Charming for a Tower of Terror Pin the CM had...the CM traded and as my son walked away, he asked my son if the Prince Charming was part of a collection...I was honest and told him that my son recieved the boxed set but that they were separate pins -- the CM became very animated stating that in order for my son to keep the Tower of Terror pin, he had to trade all three pins from the Cinderella series - I was shocked that he carried on so with a eight yr old especially after he had made the trade...he then pulled out a "Pin Trading Rule Book" from his back pocket and started looking for the rule on trading collectiions....I am sure I could have made a stink about it and told him to get lost since he had already given the pin to my son, but I was calm and before he stuffed the rule in my face, I told my son just to give the CM his pin back and we went on... I was curious on your comments....fyi, we did not have any problems with any other CM's the rest of our trip.

Back to the Hat, at the end of the day, after the parade, we stopped by the Hat and realized it was a store so we browsed and I overheard a man in front of me ask about a limited edition Pres Day 2002 pin and the CM stated he had 9 left and he pulled one out of a drawer..so myself and my son each ended up purchasing one of these limited edition pins - was that good? Not sure how limited it was!

One last question, when my son got home he took out his pins and we started putting them into our pin binder we got from the Dis Store and one of the pin "needles" completed came off - he had got this from a CM in a trade. It seems pretty useless with no pin metal backing -is there anything we can do to fix this?


Oh, does anyone know if they sell extra separate pages for the pin binders they sell at the DIsney Store??

ps - they put my carryon bag thru the security scanner twice because they saw some heavy metal objects----turns out it was our pins... luckily they did take apart my bags and figured out it was my disney pins!

thanks!

 

[Mickey527]

Sorry to hear you had such a bad experience with that CM.
Unless the rules have changed in the past few days, the CM was wrong. If a pin is part of a set but can stand alone it should have been taken as a trade. They won't take the 2002 pins seperately, but they will take those little park logo pins alone. And we all know there are hundreds of those around on all the CM lanyards. I think Disney just collects them and resells them over and over, there really are only 25 sets made. Oh, no, I just started a rumor that those are LE 25.

If you let me know which Tower of Terror pin it was that your son had to give back I will find it in my trader book and send it to you. Send me your mailing address and his name. Don't forget to send your daughters name too, I wouldn't want to forget sending her a special pin.
Good to hear that you got the LE pin. I know the feeling of being at the parks during a release and missing out. My family is not into pinning and they won't wait around while I look or shop.
for that pin that came apart, that happens to me all the time. If the entire pin and flat part came off in one part from the pin you can epoxy it together. I have never had just the pin part come off, so if that happened I can't tell you what to do to fix it, but if it is a common pin I bet I have it in my traders.
If you can get to a hardware store ask for the grey epoxy for metal. It is a two part epoxy that you have to mix together, but it holds those pin backs on forever.

One more thing......look for the post that is titled "It's that time again" Make sure you send in your name and your son and daughter's names for the swap. It's lots of fun and I know they will love getting a surprise from someone they don't even know. Peggie

 

[NHMickey]

Well other than that one experiance it sounds like you guys all had a blast... Great!!! 100 pins... Hmmm sounds like a hobbie in the making to me....

 

[SueEllen]

I'm SO sorry that you encountered a CM like that!!! Every now and again this happens. I had an experience with a CM where she tried to tell me that she couldn't take one of my Cruiseline pins for trade. She said it wasn't in the guidelines because of the finish on it. I explained that it was a cruiseline pin, and it even had Disney's copyright on the back of the pin. She refused, so I called another CM over to the trade. The other CM told her it was okay, so I was able to trade. Unfortunately for a new trader, who is not completely familiar with the rules, this might happen. It's too bad it happened to your son.

On a positive note, that President's day pin is awesome! I just received on in the mail today (thanks Dizneypins!)

Enjoy your pin collecting. I haven't seen the page inserts for the binders, but I think I heard someone say that Disneyworld sold them at one time.

Sue Ellen

 

[n2mm]

I've encountered CMs like that too. They need to take a class with Scoop. The bottom line, if the pin stands alone it can be traded out of a set. My last trip, a CM would not take a Tokyo Disney Ice Skating pin from my grandson. He said it wasn't Disney---duh. I just told him he was incorrect and said I would trade our pin with another CM. I've explained this to my grandson prior so that he would not be upset if he was rejected. Can you imagine being 7 years old and handing a CM a different Disney pin (which does say Disney on the back and has Mickey and Minnie on the front) and the CM tells him no that's not a legitimate pin. He looks at Nana and wonders why she gave him bum pins to trade. I tell him that alot of CMs just don't understand the rules. I made sure my grandson went to one of Scoop's presentations when he started trading. By the way, my grandson traded a ton of those story book pins during his trip in January and never had a problem with them. Actually a lot of people would take the pins before the CMs could even put them on their lanyards.

 

[Luv2Roam]

Seems to be one in every crowd. I had an experience that was embarrassing too the way the CM handles it. I was expecting a locked cage and security to come crashing down on me in the MK.
Ends up I probably did give her a bum (counterfeit) pin. But sure couldn't figure out the problem at the time!
Glad you got your LE! That helps make up for the other.
Make sure you get yourself and the kids set up on Pinpics. then the fun really begins!
When I returned from DL last May, one of my pin prongs stayed in the card when I removed the pin from the card.

I called DL Guest Services. They had me mail back the bad pin and sent a replacemnt.
In WDW, I also bought a defective pin. They didn't make me return the defective one. They just sent me a replacement.
Try calling:
407-363-6200
or e-mailing
wdw.mail.order@disney.com
I guess my thoughts are that I paid good money for the pin and want a decent one. (Rather than one I have to repair and may never be the same again.)
The one with a busted prong I even took to a jewelers to see if they could soder (sp) the prong back on the pin back. But they didn't want to take the chance putting heat against the backside of the finish.

 

[Pan's Dad]

Mickey527:

That was an awesome post - and I keep thinking about your kind words and offer...thank you for that...as it turned out, on our last nite (our flight left the next morn at 11am), i walked in the pooring rain over to the Boardwalk at 9pm from the Dolphin and was able to find a Tower of Terror Pin for my son (of course I had to pick up one for my daughter (Monorail) and one for myself (a Boardwalk Pin!)), and I will present them to my kids as a present later this year...i thought my daughter made a neat trade for a Chef Mickey's pin and my son also had some neat trades, one being a GF pin with if i recall, Minnie, Mickey and Pluto with a chain from Pluto to M and M (I like to collect the hotels we've stayed at)...they each purchased about 4 or 5 pins during our stay. During our visit in 2000, I was smart enuf to purchase a lot of pins at our local Disney Store, using my Dis Club Disct of course, and they loved trading when we arrived that yr...so this yr, I again purchased a lot of pins before our visit ($4 vs $6.50 at the parks) and this turns out to be one of their favorite parts of vacation...what did you enjoy most? pin trading and swimming! oh boy. forget about the parks! actually they loved everything but would always search out those CM's with lanyards....

How many pins do you have? sounds like a lot! it is kind of neat but when i realized how many pins we had and did the math (yeah, part of being an accountant i guess), i could not believe how expensive that Disney Pin Binder was when completely filled!! I am trying to keep it a secret from my wife!!!


Thank you so much for your offer to help out - the pin that broke was a surfing Mickey which he traded for at Typhoon Lagoon and only the pin broke not the pin and flat part as you described...the flat part stayed on...very strange...so i guess it is a useless pin at this point...

I thought it was very nice of a number of CM's to let my son keep the rubber backs from his pins when their pins had the less sturdy metal backs...I purchased a few extra bags of rubber backs from the World of Disney as the metal ones don't seem as reliable

that one CM who took back the pin really is one of those individuals in life who just doesn't get it...i mean to be so concerned over a little pin..it just wasn't worth arguing about ...i, more or less, shook my head in disbelief, that this seemed to be the most significant thing in this guy's life instead of the fact that he had an excited 8 yr old boy right there in front of him and he was taking away what he was trained to give ---- "the magicical experience of Disney"...oh well...the rest of the CM's were very kind to my kids and I was grateful for that.

Thanks once again for your kindness -

 

[Amor4Pooh]

At DL one of the rules is that you can not trade a pin from a set, you must trade the whole set as one pin. I hadn't heard that was the rule at WDW, but since they have the same sorts of sets, don't be surprised if it's the coming trend. DL had to make the rules very specific after a few "traders" pretty much junked all the lanyards with cheap pins and single pins from sets. The rules as of last April I believe are: no epoxy coating; must have Disney copyright; must be traded as a set; must be cloissonne, and cannot be the same as a pin they already have on their lanyard. Also, it doesn't matter if you bought the pin at DL or any of the Disney parks or stores, they must follow all of the rules or you cannot trade them for CM lanyard pins. There are more rules, but those are the ones I can think of right now. I hadn't heard they had changed the rules to trade in WDW, but can anyone tell us if there is something in writing (there is a little brochure at DL, so you can have it in writing, to clear up any misunderstandings) to be sure what the rules are?
Thanks,
Nichole