Please help my sons learn how to trade

[mommadomma]

Background info: Sons were 7 and 10 when we went to disney world last (they are 11 and 14 now). They bought disney pins and lanyards and spent their entire trip trading and having fun.

Fast forward: We are going back on 2/5-2/13 and they want to trade their pins from the first trip. Are there ways for me to know what pins are worth so that my kids don't end up trading something valuable for something readily available?

Are there some pin trading guidelines that they should know.

I am afraid that because they are older now, people will expect them to know what they are doing and won't be so generous as to point out an unfair trade to them.

Any tips for a mom??

 

[daber]

First suggestion: Go to the Scoop talk at 1:00 at MK Expo Hall (to the right of the train station on Main Street). Tell him you want to learn about pin trading ettiquette.

Second: If you want a guide to what the pin is worth to serious (?) collectors you can do two things:
1. Research the pin on pinpics.com. While it won't give a $ value, you will know how many people have the pin for trading and how many want the pin. Normally I will do a ratio of T/W. If the number is >1 then it has low value. The closer the ratio is to 0 the more valuable.

2. Buy the Tomart guide. While it is out of date prior to publishing because of the daily changes in pin trading, it is still a barometer of the value of the pin. They assign an alpha value which correlates to a price range of what people are willing to pay for a pin.
(neither method is foolproof or exact, but can be a good approximation. Remember that one man's junk is another man's diamond. If you collect pluto pins and I don't, then I will place a low value on it, and you may think it is the Hope Diamond)

Hope this helps. Just remember this is to be a fun hobby. If it's no longer fun, then stop. So have fun!

 

[ohMom]

from one mom to another -- buy some pin lots on ebay (carefully) making sure they are tradable and not 'buttons' and then you go with pins you don't care for anyhow that you bought cheap and trade away! have fun!

are you in this as a collector? my girls and I love to pin trade, but we trade for pins we like. We usually pick a theme and search for that, i.e. disney dogs, tinkerbell, vintage Mickey/Minnie, certain movie, etc. We mainly trade with CMs. Your 11 y/o is young enough to trade with the CM with green lanyards (i think green?) that trade with 12 y/o and under only.

 

[Cheshire Figment]

One thing to get them thinking about is that although trading is fun, the end result should be collecting. Have them think about what they have now and what they want to do with the pins. They might want to concentrate on one or two characters; this way they will get something more out of it than just trading.