Pin Trading - On a Budget

[csharpwv]

OK, so my wife and I have been pin collectors - NOT traders. We were a little ashamed on one trip last year when a little girl in a Princess costume wanted to trade for a pin that we had - but it was one from our Honeymoon at WDW so we didn't want to trade it. (I get emotionally attached to things when memories are involved!)
So, I decided that pin trading looks fun - and I just couldn't imagine walking up to a pin station - buying a lanyard - and filling it with pins - paying retail for the pins and lanyard.....how expensive would that be?!?!?!

So in looking for other alternatives, I went to eBay.

I found genuine WDW pins in lots of 20 (and more) for around $1.00 each. If you figure that the average pin in the parks costs around $6.00-$9.00 depending on size etc etc etc. I bought around $150.00 worth of pins for $20.00 - shipping included!

So on our most recent trip to WDW (just this past weekend) I put 4-6 pins on the lanyard (the DVC Member Lanyard from our last cruise!) each day before heading into the parks and traded away - with kids in line, with parents, and a lot with cast members. I'm shocked at how easy it is - it's really fun as well!!!!

I was also surprised at the pins I found on Cast Members. One from a Grand Gathering - another pin from the Year 2000 Celebration at Epcot.
While I don't collect pins for their value (as I don't really have any idea what pins are valuable and which ones are not) I like to collect interesting ones - and I tried to get as many Chip & Dale pins for our upcoming Disney Cruise in December (a shout out to the Cruisin' Nuts! )

So - as a tip - BUY PINS BEFORE YOU GO!
That way you save a ton of money, you can trade around for the pins you want, you don't have to trade pins that you bought for sentimental reasons, and most importantly you can have fun doing it!

I am now an avid trader! I really had fun doing it!

 

[smileycrissy]

Hi, My sister told me she did this with my nieces on her recent trip so I decided to give it a try. I recently bought some pins from eBay too. Got them in a few days ago and when I closely inspected them it seems the person used a polisher to try to 'fix' some of the pins. If I can describe what they look like, I would have to say it almost looks like light brush strokes. It's not entirely noticeable because I didn't catch it at first. Its only when I took the time to inspect them that I noticed this. I'm on the fence on whether to keep them or return them to the seller (I contacted him asking about this to which he replied I could return them and he'd issue a refund). I guess my question to you is how closely do the pins get examined? I know I'm not keeping these pins for a collection so I don't expect them to be perfect but I'd hate to be turned down from being able to trade. Perhaps you can PM the seller's name you bought from on eBay to me? I'm just really on the fence about this one guy.


However I am glad you had a great time trading. I'm looking forward to doing this myself.

 

[LuvSulley]

Hi, My sister told me she did this with my nieces on her recent trip so I decided to give it a try. I recently bought some pins from eBay too. Got them in a few days ago and when I closely inspected them it seems the person used a polisher to try to 'fix' some of the pins. If I can describe what they look like, I would have to say it almost looks like light brush strokes. It's not entirely noticeable because I didn't catch it at first. Its only when I took the time to inspect them that I noticed this. I'm on the fence on whether to keep them or return them to the seller (I contacted him asking about this to which he replied I could return them and he'd issue a refund). I guess my question to you is how closely do the pins get examined? I know I'm not keeping these pins for a collection so I don't expect them to be perfect but I'd hate to be turned down from being able to trade. Perhaps you can PM the seller's name you bought from on eBay to me? I'm just really on the fence about this one guy.

However I am glad you had a great time trading. I'm looking forward to doing this myself.

It sounds like the pins you got might be scrappers. Be careful when buying pins on eBay, big lots for $1/each usually mean they are scrappers. Check out the collector's board for good eBay sellers (http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2213419).

 

[smileycrissy]

It sounds like the pins you got might be scrappers. Be careful when buying pins on eBay, big lots for $1/each usually mean they are scrappers. Check out the collector's board for good eBay sellers (http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2213419).

Thanks so much for this link. I do think I got scrappers as well. I think I may just send it back to the person and get some pins from a reliable person.

 

[csharpwv]

The pins I received were in great condition - only a few of them appeared to have ever been traded/used - the rest were in mint or very near mint condition.

All of them were individually wrapped in either stapled cellophane bags or in small zip top bags.

I will gladly PM the seller I purchased from to anyone who asks- they even have free shipping!
I only kept one original and that was because it was the Chip & Dale world traveler pin!

 

[HM]

I didn't read your whole post, but I did want to comment on the fact that you felt bad about not trading with a little girl. If you don't plan on trading, why do you wear the pins in the parks? It would be better not to wear any that you don't plan to trade, right? Then you'll never be put in that situation again.

 

[MamaPoppins]

We r big traders in this family....my sister started it with my nieces and I fell in luv with it so now my son, myself and my 3 nieces all trade pins so we do use Ebay bc it is so much easier. We have gotten pins from Ebay now 3 times and each time they have all been real and so great that we even end up keeping some. The last lot we got was 50 and we wanted to keep so many so I decided every 1 gets 2 pick one they keep. All pins we do not wish to trade stay at home in our books because we all have the Disney pin books and so our land yards are only those we want to trade. I even found a land yard in the party supply store for my youngest niece for a $1, prier to her new Minnie land yard she was also using one of the DVC members land yards we got on a cruise. We love it so much...it is so much fun.

 

[tink576]

I didn't read your whole post, but I did want to comment on the fact that you felt bad about not trading with a little girl. If you don't plan on trading, why do you wear the pins in the parks? It would be better not to wear any that you don't plan to trade, right? Then you'll never be put in that situation again.

But it's fun to wear pins you like...just because it's a cute kid doesn't mean you have to trade. I've been trading since it began in 2000. Many times I'll have pins that I want to wear/show off that young kids just don't have the trading materials to trade for. That doesn't mean I'm not trading the pin, but chances are those pins they have from the starter sets (well if you're trading for real you just don't want those).

My mom always wears a lanyard of pins she loves, just to wear those she loves and show them off. She never trades them. If someone has a lanyard, sure you can ask them to trade, but ultimately they can wear a lanyard for whatever reason (to trade or not to trade) they want.

That said, I try to have a lanyard of pins I don't care about so if a kid does ask to trade I'll let them look at that lanyard and I don't care what they give me. But many people don't have enough pins to have a lanyard just for little kids...

 

[sunlover13]

My DD started pin trading on our last trip. I bought her a bunch of them from mousepinsoline.com. They had a grab bag price where I think it ended up being about $1.00 or $1.50 per pin. Great way to save $ on pins!

 

[csharpwv]

But it's fun to wear pins you like...just because it's a cute kid doesn't mean you have to trade. I've been trading since it began in 2000. Many times I'll have pins that I want to wear/show off that young kids just don't have the trading materials to trade for. That doesn't mean I'm not trading the pin, but chances are those pins they have from the starter sets (well if you're trading for real you just don't want those).

My mom always wears a lanyard of pins she loves, just to wear those she loves and show them off. She never trades them. If someone has a lanyard, sure you can ask them to trade, but ultimately they can wear a lanyard for whatever reason (to trade or not to trade) they want.

That said, I try to have a lanyard of pins I don't care about so if a kid does ask to trade I'll let them look at that lanyard and I don't care what they give me. But many people don't have enough pins to have a lanyard just for little kids...

When that incident happened we were just starting to buy pins - and we were buying pins that we really liked - but we still had the bride and groom pins etc on our lanyard from our honeymoon - so we were just building our lanyard for the fun of it - and honestly really didn't understand how the whole trading thing worked! HAHA But - now we know - and those pins stay home!

I've also thought about buying some of the locking backs - to keep a few of our favorites on the lanyard - but only on one side so we could trade anything on the one side of the lanyard!

Anyway - trading is fun - just not if you are attached to your pins!

 

[delmar411]

I didn't read your whole post, but I did want to comment on the fact that you felt bad about not trading with a little girl. If you don't plan on trading, why do you wear the pins in the parks? It would be better not to wear any that you don't plan to trade, right? Then you'll never be put in that situation again.

Because 99% of people in the parks only trade with CMs. Trading with other guests is pretty rare. And a CM will not ask you for a certain pin on your lanyard.

 

[3BoysRDisneyFreaks]

we love trading pins. we got a huge lot of 100 pins from ebay earlier this year. each kid purchases a pin as a souvie from each trip. it is fun to remember the trip months later by looking at the pins. those we leave home when we travel and just take our lanyards full of traders.
only once in 8 years of trading have we traded with another guest. otherwise it has been CM's.
during a trip we usually have a goal of what we are looking for. like all mickey pins or all ride pins. it is fun to have a certain type of pin to look for. we have a great collection of the muppet characters all wearing ears. so far that is my favorite set.

have fun...buy cheap on ebay!

Sarah

 

[princessmom29]

Any metal pin with a stamped disney logo on the back is tradable per disney's own policy. If you do not care about the value of the pins and are just trading for fun, it doesn't matter if what you bought are scrappers or not. We have traded the last 2 trips with $1 a pin lots from ebay and never been turned away. They are for my young DD, and she really doesn't care about value. She has traded for some things form cast lanyards that are not "real official" disney pins but she doesn't care, she likes them anyway. It doesn't really matter to me as long as she is enjoying herself. If you really care about authenticity and value, then you have watch carefully and really look at what you are trading for.

 

[pixiewings71]

PLEASE please please educate yourself on scrappers and please please please use our eBay super thread on the Collector's Board. It's a HUGE thread but it's worth reading it, it is very educational. I have a family of 4 traders and we try very very hard to not trade scrappers. Unfortunately when we first started trading we had no idea what scrappers were (until a rude trader told us everything we had to trade was crap) so yes, I too bought those lots of 100 pins for $100.....but not anymore!! Scrappers are NOT legit pins. And altho we trade with the intent to collect it's very frustrating to find out that the pins you thought were good turn out to be scrappers. My advice to any and all traders is to NOT trade (or buy) scrappers if you can help it. Of course it takes research to figure that out but your fellow traders DO care. And I often trade with park guests not just with CM's, I find guests are open to trades as well as CM's but the difference is the guests can say "no" while the CM's cannot. I've had kids ask for my special non-trader pins and I simply say "I'm sorry, that pin is not for trade, but any of these are, is there something here you would like?". Of course I go to DL so maybe it's different there.

Anyone that is looking for cheap pins, PLEASE visit our thread about eBay and scrappers. I'm sure that the OP got all scrappers unfortunately.

 

[ajh88]

I will say that we have likely been guilty of buying and trading scrappers - I actually only just found out they existed here on the Dis in the past couple of weeks (and we have been trading pins for many years). Who knew there was an entire "black market" of Disney pins?

The problem is that even one of the websites that discusses known scrappers, etc. says very plainly that the only way to GUARANTEE you don't have a scrapper is to buy from Disney directly. Well, that sort of shoots pin trading itself out of the water, right? I mean, I don't know where the CM's I trade with got their pins - they could all be scrappers. And sadly, even after perusing the website to see if I had any scrapper pins, I still couldn't tell. I only purchased from U.S. sellers, primarily from Florida, and all of the pins were back-stamped appropriately. Really, no way to know they may have been less than 100% legit.


In the end, I will try to patronize the ebay sellers who are known to sell authentic pins - or at least take the initiative to ask the seller before I buy what the origin of their pins may be. But, I too have purchased large lots on ebay for less than $1 a pin and we have traded the heck out of them in the parks (we only trade with CM's) and we have never had a trade rejected.

ETA: I haven't read through the entire pin trading thread, but I did click on some of the links to see the relevant posts as to how sellers wound up as red, yellow, or green. I'm sure that the intentions are good and honorable and that people are reporting their honest experiences - but for some of them, the "supporting" post seems a bit weak, IMHO. I assume that maybe there is more information somewhere else in the thread that provides more supporting information beyond "add this person to the scrapper list." And I did see a post where the person said they would not add them to the list without some corroboration, so I will use the list with the assumption that some amount of vetting has been done (to prove or disprove the "allegation") and will use it as a guide, rather than an absolute.

 

[pixiewings71]

I will say that we have likely been guilty of buying and trading scrappers - I actually only just found out they existed here on the Dis in the past couple of weeks (and we have been trading pins for many years). Who knew there was an entire "black market" of Disney pins?

The problem is that even one of the websites that discusses known scrappers, etc. says very plainly that the only way to GUARANTEE you don't have a scrapper is to buy from Disney directly. Well, that sort of shoots pin trading itself out of the water, right? I mean, I don't know where the CM's I trade with got their pins - they could all be scrappers. And sadly, even after perusing the website to see if I had any scrapper pins, I still couldn't tell. I only purchased from U.S. sellers, primarily from Florida, and all of the pins were back-stamped appropriately. Really, no way to know they may have been less than 100% legit.


In the end, I will try to patronize the ebay sellers who are known to sell authentic pins - or at least take the initiative to ask the seller before I buy what the origin of their pins may be. But, I too have purchased large lots on ebay for less than $1 a pin and we have traded the heck out of them in the parks (we only trade with CM's) and we have never had a trade rejected.

ETA: I haven't read through the entire pin trading thread, but I did click on some of the links to see the relevant posts as to how sellers wound up as red, yellow, or green. I'm sure that the intentions are good and honorable and that people are reporting their honest experiences - but for some of them, the "supporting" post seems a bit weak, IMHO. I assume that maybe there is more information somewhere else in the thread that provides more supporting information beyond "add this person to the scrapper list." And I did see a post where the person said they would not add them to the list without some corroboration, so I will use the list with the assumption that some amount of vetting has been done (to prove or disprove the "allegation") and will use it as a guide, rather than an absolute.

Yes, we do corroborate reports as much as we possibly can. There are a few of us who are very active on that thread and we buy pins from eBay just so we can see if they are scrappers or not. But we don't normally add anyone to the red or green lists unless they are proven to be reliable sellers, otherwise they will go on the yellow/orange list so we can get more information. Also, the ones of us that are very active do know most of the "tells" for the eBay scrappers sellers so we can use our judgement in many cases. Of course it's not an absolute, we have no idea what pins any seller may have at any time, I have a couple of sellers that I really trust completely and I have actually received scrappers from them a time or two, it's just very hard to tell via eBay if a pin is real or not.

For more information on how to tell if a certain pin you have may be a scrapper go to pinpics.com, they have scrapper alerts on each pin page, these alerts are put there by the traders who use pinpics, the information I have received there has been very good. It's not a chat board tho, it's more like a pin catalog.

Of course if you have ANY questions regarding eBay, pins, scrappers please feel free to ask on the eBay thread or just PM me. I'm happy to answer your questions if I can. I'm not an expert but I'd like to think I am pretty knowledgeable.

 

[Geppetto Jack]

I bought a couple of pin lots from ebay and was wondeing what consists of "scrapper" pins? I got alot of hidden mickey, limited release, first release and vinylmation pins. Is it possible to have scappers in any of these catagories? This will be my first year trading down in disney, I am also going to try and get my son involved.

 

[smileycrissy]

I bought a couple of pin lots from ebay and was wondeing what consists of "scrapper" pins? I got alot of hidden mickey, limited release, first release and vinylmation pins. Is it possible to have scappers in any of these catagories? This will be my first year trading down in disney, I am also going to try and get my son involved.

You can click on the link in PixieWings signature but I'm also listing the link below
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2213419

Its a long thread and worthwhile to read the first page and a few pages throughout. I have to agree with Pixie about trying to keep the scrappers out of the parks & CM's lanyards. It isn't fair to the people who do taking pin trading seriously. I also understand when it comes to kids that they don't care if the pin is real or not. All I can suggest is for everyone to try their best not to trade the scrappers.

 

[LuvSulley]

I bought a couple of pin lots from ebay and was wondeing what consists of "scrapper" pins? I got alot of hidden mickey, limited release, first release and vinylmation pins. Is it possible to have scappers in any of these catagories? This will be my first year trading down in disney, I am also going to try and get my son involved.

There are a lot of scrappers for Vinylmation pins. To check, look at back border. Here's a pic a pin trader on another board posted:

The middle is a authentic Disney pin. You can tell because there is no border. This applies to all pins with mickey head stamps not just Vinylmation pins.

 

[Anjelica]

You can click on the link in PixieWings signature but I'm also listing the link below
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2213419

Its a long thread and worthwhile to read the first page and a few pages throughout. I have to agree with Pixie about trying to keep the scrappers out of the parks & CM's lanyards. It isn't fair to the people who do taking pin trading seriously. I also understand when it comes to kids that they don't care if the pin is real or not. All I can suggest is for everyone to try their best not to trade the scrappers.

ITA

Pin Collecting and Budget really don't go hand in hand. I don't understand the thought process some folks have with knowingly buying scrappers and trading them. Sure it's just the CM who gets it initially but then some young child who saves up his/her allowance to purchase authentic pins to trade who are then given junk is not really "fair" or in the "spirit" of what it was meant for. Just because a child wants to trade/collect pins and a parent doesn't want to spend the money doesn't mean folks have to contribute to the scrapper problem.

Bottom line - if you can't afford to acquire authenticate pins then don't trade them. Sorry if that's harsh but I can't believe the lengths people have gone to "create memories".