Pin trading

[jessienatillie]

I've done a lot of research on pin trading. We are going to WDW for the first time with our kids 6 & 8 and I know they would just love pin trading. I would like to buy them an official starter set and a small lot of pins to trade. I know there are scrappers out there (especially on ebay) and that a serious collector should probably buy at WDW or official packaged sets only. We aren't interested in being serious collectors. We just want to have some fun!

My question, if you do have scrappers will CM's refuse to trade with you? If they are scrappers that look and feel 'real' how will they know? Will most of the CMs have scrappers on their lanyards/boards anyways so therefore buying and trading scrappers (for the kids) won't matter anyways?

 

[Lavitz]

I've done a lot of research on pin trading. We are going to WDW for the first time with our kids 6 & 8 and I know they would just love pin trading. I would like to buy them an official starter set and a small lot of pins to trade. I know there are scrappers out there (especially on ebay) and that a serious collector should probably buy at WDW or official packaged sets only. We aren't interested in being serious collectors. We just want to have some fun!

My question, if you do have scrappers will CM's refuse to trade with you? If they are scrappers that look and feel 'real' how will they know? Will most of the CMs have scrappers on their lanyards/boards anyways so therefore buying and trading scrappers (for the kids) won't matter anyways?

My 9 year old loves pin trading. In our probably close to 100 trades I can tell you almost every CM doesn't really look at what my daughter or myself were giving them really. They do it so often I guess, and like you said so many people probably have pins that are scrappers that it doesn't make sense to check for them.

Also when I got back for my most recent trip I tried to identify the pins that were official. After about an hour of research I gave up. Serious collectors admit that some pins sold at the parks look like scrappers due to bad manufacturing, which is another reason why I guess CMs don't really check. Have fun trading!

*edit*

Also if you think your kids would like pin trading, look up Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom in case you haven't heard of it. Similar to pin trading (sort of), but the cards are free from Disney every time you go to MK, and you get to play a pretty fun game all across the park with them. I only figured it out on our last visit, wish I had known sooner.

 

[megsoro]

Don't worry about scrapers. When I was visiting a dcp friend, he said they're instructed to put them in a bin when he gets one. They'll never tell you or little one "no that's fake."

 

[lucyem]

Don't worry about scrapers. When I was visiting a dcp friend, he said they're instructed to put them in a bin when he gets one. They'll never tell you or little one "no that's fake."

Not All cm's know what is or is not a scrapper. We have received many scrapers in trades with cm's. But I do agree, even if they notice a scrapper they say nothing and will trade for it.

 

[chris31997]

If you are worried about scrappers, I would buy a pin set where it is the most pins for the least amount. ie 7 pins for $20 Find pins like that they would want to trade and are on sale.

This is what we do. We hit the parks, stores, online and see what is on sale and get the most pins for the least amount of $$ and that is what the kids trade. I don't buy their fav character, movie or whatever.

Then at the park I might buy a couple of special pins and those don't get traded.


I would laso let the kids wear into the parks, only the pins they want to trade. It helps with the weight and how much they are carrying

 

[Happyjen27]

Watch Disney dot com for good deals on starter sets, even those that you kids have no interest in, since they will trade them away anyway. We bought a lanyard and 8 pins for like $25, they were half off.

We always buy pins from Disney, so as to not add to the scrapper problem, but I guarantee we are currently the owners of some scrapper pins after trading over the course of 2 trips. We probably got them from CMs. We don't care, it's all for fun, and I am happy knowing I didn't put any scrappers into the system.

 

[jessienatillie]

Thanks everyone for the great advice!

 

[jessienatillie]

My 9 year old loves pin trading. In our probably close to 100 trades I can tell you almost every CM doesn't really look at what my daughter or myself were giving them really. They do it so often I guess, and like you said so many people probably have pins that are scrappers that it doesn't make sense to check for them.

Also when I got back for my most recent trip I tried to identify the pins that were official. After about an hour of research I gave up. Serious collectors admit that some pins sold at the parks look like scrappers due to bad manufacturing, which is another reason why I guess CMs don't really check. Have fun trading!

*edit*

Also if you think your kids would like pin trading, look up Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom in case you haven't heard of it. Similar to pin trading (sort of), but the cards are free from Disney every time you go to MK, and you get to play a pretty fun game all across the park with them. I only figured it out on our last visit, wish I had known sooner.

Thanks for the tip about Sorcerers!

 

[MandiC]

We bought from amazon, I think we got 15 pins for $20. Not sure if they are scrappers but I couldn't tell any difference between them and the ones we bought from Disney. I don't really recommend buying any favorites for kids before going anyways. My kids weren't all that excited about the pins before we left because obviously buying a lot we didn't get to choose which pins we got. I think this was great because then they could trade all the pins we bought for ones they liked with cms...gave them more opportunity, and the cms are so good about asking the kids (mine can get pretty shy) if they want to trade if they see a little one eyeing up one of their pins