Pin Trading and Photopasses

[Sherwin]

Someone teach me about these two novelties! It appears they are popular among DIS folk. What are the benefits of pins, their purpose, etc. And then what about photopasses?

THANKS.

 

[Disney Dreams]

Pin trading is something to do for fun. It can become addicting VERY easily.

The basic comcept:
1. You buy Disney pins from a variety of places. Many people put them on a lanyard to wear around the park. You don't have to wear a lanyard though.

2. At the Park, many Disney CMs wear lanyards with pins. They are ALL for trading with guests. They do not belong to the CM personally. They HAVE to trade with you if you ask them. (Exception: Teal lanyards are for trading with kids under 12 only.)

3. You can trade up to 2 pins with 1 CM off of their lanyard and cannot offer them a pin they already have.

So.... let's say you are a pirate fan. You have your pins. You see a CM with a lanyard. You ask if you could look at his/her lanyard. You see a cool pirate pin. You ask to trade for "that" pin and hand him/her one of your pins, but not one they already have. Voila, the pirate pin is yours.

Now... Hidden Mickey pins:
There are special pins that are never for sale and only enter the circulation of pin trading through cast lanyards. They have a little tiny silver Mickey head on them somewhere. They are called Cast Lanyard or Hidden Mickey pins. Many consider them "valuable," but I am one that tries to encourage people to collect what they like, not just what is perceived as valuable. New hidden mickeys come out every month and you can view them all over the internet.

You can also trade with fellow guests. Many big-time traders sit at various places in the Park with their books of pins and trade all day long. I only trade with CM (aside from the very rare exception) because I hate getting into a "value" debate with people over pins.

My final word of advice from experience: Pin trading can get very addictive (and add up $-wise) very quickly. However, if you enjoy it, it's a fun thing to do and a nice way to build up a Disney pin collection. I started out knowing nothing about pin trading. About a year ago, I asked a VERY active pin trading friend to explain the basics. She gave me a Nemo pin and before you knew it - I was on the hunt for the other pins in the series! I now have probably somewhere in the realm of 300+ pins and had "Pins" on my packing list for our WDW trip! Yeah, I'm hooked.

Hope this helps. If you have any questions - ask away! I'll let someone else tackle PhotoPass for you (so as not to monopolize your thread). It's a great thing!

- Dreams

 

[bumbershoot]

Photopass:

There are photographers in the parks who will take your picture. they are generally set up in front of things like the castle, the "partners" statue, the entrance Mickey floral doohickey...that sort of thing. They are also sometimes with characters at meet&greet spots.

The benefit of having a pic taken by them is that the whole family can be in the picture, instead of just knowing the family photographer was there b/c you can sometimes see their shadow, or just b/c the pictures were taken.

There's a photopass section on stitchkingdom.com, which is a site by a Dis member, bradk, but it's really WDW-centric. The bare bones basics are the same, but pricing is different, locations are different, some of the special "magic" pictures are different. So you can't get too excited about things if you read there, b/c the things might not be there at DLR.

You can have 5x7 prints made for something like 12.95 and just have each individual print you buy. You can now buy a download of chosen pictures for 14.95 each, and that gives you the rights for that picture, to make prints wherever and whenever, and that's nice. Better than having to do stealth copies at Kinko's or wherever.

But the best value is the photopass CD, where you get all the pictures you had taken by photopass photogs on a CD. And the rights to print them for non-business purposes for forever. Nice.

You can buy that CD in the parks, and they usually have a special involving a couple/few 5x7 prints, for 59.95.

Or if you want to edit them by adding little borders (usually specific to the park you're in, the season you're in, etc) or character signatures (at official character spots, when the photographer specifies that the character was there somehow, you can wait and do do that on your computer. Then you can order the CD for 59.95 plus about $6 shipping, and you'll have all the original pictures PLUS each edit you did and saved.

I ended up not ordering the CD this last time, as we only got 2 pictures (but they were GOOD pictures). BUT I edited those pictures into 50, and then I realized that I should make sure that I saved each pic in both 4x6 size and 5x7 size, so then that doubled it all....would have been a ton of pictures on that CD, but still it was only 2 original pictures so I couldn't justify the cost (especially since we're buying our wedding pictures CD at long last, now that it's been 5 years since we bought prints from the photographer and he's finally letting us buy the CD!).


hope that helps a little.