My DD6 and I both wear pins that we won't trade (she trades, I don't). I wear them because I like them. My lanyard of pins is my "jewely" for the trip, my necklace you could say. I would never go up to someone other than a CM to trade a pin unless they were at a pin trading station obviously looking to trade. I don't assume that just because I see someone wearing pins that they must want to trade with others. All of my pins are locked and the ones my DD6 isn't allowed to trade are locked also (which at this point are almost all of them). She has actually traded with non CM's a few times, but mostly just CM's.
Also for the person who said they were thinking of getting locks- I bought them last year as my daughter would literally lose an entire lanyard full of pins over the course of a trip so we started locking the "good" ones (ones she earned for going on big rides, special occassions, etc) however even with the locks we both have continued to lose pins, however now it's just a couple of pins instead of a full lanyard. It is good for keeping her from trading away ones she shouldn't be trading though.
I wear pins I don't trade as well, I just say "sorry that pin is not for trade" if someone asks for it. I get asked a lot by traders because I have some really nice pins on my lanyard. I use locking backs for my keepers and tell people anything above here is available but anything below is not, if I'm wearing my pirate lanyard basically none of those are for trade.
I like to display my pins, to "show them off" you might say and I've got some really really nice ones that people want. I have no problems saying no and I have no problems if someone tells me no, but I'll still ask.
We use the locking backs you get from Disney, the ones that come with a little allen wrench, they've worked great for keeping our pins on our lanyards but we only use them on keepers because they are a pain to take off.
I'm a little confused on the PinPics site on their scrapper page. Are the photos of pins just pins known to have scrappers out there? Or are they actual examples of scrappers? I'm thrown off because we have gotten a few of those in the lots I've purchased, but many of the pins we've gotten are not pictured there (and interestingly, in all the lots I bought before I knew about this, we never got doubles of anything). There are also some pictured that we purchased directly at Disney. I'm just having trouble interpreting what the photos on that page mean and how they are supposed to help me spot a scrapper (because I know that just because a pin is pictured there, it doesn't mean it is a scrapper automatically).
The pins on the scrapper page there are generally ones people have that can be scrappers, it's not really kept up to date but if you find your individual pin by doing a search then you will scrapper alerts there. For instance, follow this link and scroll down, you will see what I'm referring to when I say you will see a scrapper warning......
http://pinpics.com/cgi-bin/pin.cgi?pin=52589&sid=7749.1284320688.v2 I have this pin, mine is a scrapper but I also have a few real ones in this group and they look exactly the same until you see the backstamp, then you know what the problem is.
Another tip I have learned is to carry a small magnet with whenever you are trading in the parks. The reason is that most real Disney pins will not stick to the magnet. Once in DL we met a great CM who spoke with 5 of us about our pins. There was a guy who had the whole alphabet set and found out that 18 of his pins were scrappers that way. This does not work on all pins, as older pins will stick to it, or my DH has a stitch police badge that we bought from Disney but will stick to the magnet.
We once traded a military POW/MIA pin with another guest because he liked it so much. He knew it wasnt a Disney pin but he was okay with it
the magnet does work with some pins but not all, so if you want to do that be aware it may not 100%.
I just wanted to comment briefly on this - as I said before, I didn't know until about 2 weeks ago that the pins I was purchasing were anything less than authentic. The auctions all state "authentic", they are all Disney back-stamped, and they certainly appear to be "real". In fact, I can't even say with 100% certainty that every pin I've purchased for a "deal" has been a fake, but I definitely have my suspicions now.
I'm angry at the sellers who mislead buyers (like me) into thinking they are getting a bargain. I may have only paid $1 a pin, but I still sent an unscrupulous seller $100 for a lot, KWIM? And for me, it isn't about affording it - do you know how happy I was to find big lots of pins for so little money? But I would rather spend $100 and get 20-25 "real" pins than get 100 "fake" pins. I knew enough to avoid Sedesmas and ProPins, but not about avoiding scrappers.
And I know that people are wondering about how I could have been so dumb as to believe I could get "real" pins for so cheap - but I honestly assumed that the sellers were CM's or otherwise lived nearby to the parks and just amassed large collections over time. None of the pins were "special" in terms of series or editions (and I didn't mind since we were trading them anyway). At one time, it was my understanding that CM's received pins either free or very cheaply to trade - and my assumption was that these pins originated either from that or from people who just traded a bunch.
On a positive note, maybe more people are catching on to the scrapper thing because I've seen several lots listed at about 50 cents a pin that haven't sold recently (or at least had no bids coming down towards the end).
If the auctions are stating authentic then please let us know on the eBay thread, or alert eBay because if they are saying authentic but are not then that's fraud.
That's how to get those sellers removed from eBay.
If they are simply stating "tradeable" then that's different and that's how a lot of sellers "get away" with selling scrappers. Because I have never seen a CM turn away a trade, I've seen a CM take a scrapper and pocket it but never say no to a trade. I don't think you are dumb at all! Until people know about scrappers then how would you know?? I thought I was getting an awesome deal as well, then I learned about scrappers and realized how wrong I was. Now I make an effort to let traders know about scrappers when I see posts like this, that's why I have that link in my signature, that way anyone who might be interested can just pop on in.
If you're buying huge lots of pins for $1.00 each, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that they are fakes. Please don't support the black market on pin trading.
We only buy new pins in the parks & those are what my kids trade. It's a shame that we spend $7.00-$10.00 on each pin, & then my kid trades for a scrapper.
I think your statement is rude and not necessary. Some people simply don't know about scrappers, they see that there are pins on eBay and they buy them....it's not about being a genius or not, it's about knowing about scrappers. Obviously everyone on our eBay super thread is trying to not buy scrappers to trade, when we get scrappers we keep them, we break the posts off and make them into magnets, we use them in holiday decorations or we simply toss them. I invite you to drop in and see what you think of our thread, perhaps you will find some eBay sellers that we trust so you can save yourself a little more money on trading.
You may also find you are able to complete some sets you need to complete.
People buy everything on eBay, heck I sell pins on eBay, but mine aren't scrappers!
You don't have to pay $7-10 per pin, buy the multi packs and trade those, then you're paying $4-6 instead. Or again, come see us in our super thread and find a seller we trust, buy a few pins and see what you get. I have 2 or 3 sellers I trust above all, I've purchased probably 100 pins from each of them and only received 5-10 scrappers total, it's definitely doable.
Just so you know what happens is people in China send emails to eBay sellers who deal with pins, those emails say "buy Disney pins for pennies on the dollar" so those people buy them from direct from China for pennies, then they will either trade them in the parks for the authentic pins and sell the authentic pins on Disney at a profit or they will simply sell large lots on eBay, sometimes they will do both. Sometimes it's hard to know who is doing we try to determine that for ourselves and then post it on the super thread.
Hey, it could happen. I'm not saying buying & trading the scrappers is right. I'm just giving an example of my train of thought when I ended up with a pin lot of scrappers. 
Can't wait to see the pic of the finished project.
Lesson learned the hard way...don't trade off pins that are very limited editions. 
