what are the best pens for the characters to use to sign?

[Yensid FoNaf]

krismom,
Be careful others are very sensitive about disney's "crap" pens as you can see from reading what has been posted to me.
Renee

Oh, brother. I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings by disagreeing with you about the pens. I didn't mean to upset you or make you feel like I was in some way attacking you. That certainly was not my intent. I'm glad that you had a good time at WDW despite the pen incident and I hope that you can come back again soon!

 

[Irish Wake]

We just returned from Disney mid February and had to exchange our two pens three seperate times (6 pens) because they stopped working. The CM said it was because it was cold.

Funny a CM at AK blamed the cold on the card scanners not working well either.

 

[tigger0215]

If you are worried about the kids getting sharpie all over them... the ink should come off with rubbing alchohal (spg error) and some elbow grease

 

[cwnhokie]

Worried in what way?

My 3 year old would probably take to coloring himself black if we turned our backs and think that it was hysterical. The rubbing alcohol thing is good to know though, thanks!

 

[makinorlando]

Deleted - as I was not adding anything new after reading all the posts.

 

[RobInBigKC]

Earlier this month before our trip to WDW, we headed to the local Wal-Mart to get stuff for our trip and I specifically looked for a fat pen fairly long that had a tip that retracted at the push of a button. I found one in a fairly plain package that sold for $.69 at our local store. It's packaged in plastic with a thin cardboard backing. The front of that cardboard says mainstays office Ball Point Pen and then Black Ink and 0.8 mm in smaller print. The back says Ball Point Pen, has the model number 91249, and the UPC code 724328914299. Sorry, but it is MADE IN CHINA.

Anyway, that was our pen of choice for several dozen autographs last week and none of the characters seemed to have any problem with it (it is about the size of the souvenir pens that Disney sells). Even on the couple of occasions where the boys had retracted the pen, the characters they were with at the time were able to get them back open again.

-- Rob

 

[taswira]

Now i dont know how long ago you used thousands of these pens to sign autographs or even how long ago you purchased these pens for your children but perhaps it is possible that disney changed suppliers and they are not the same quality now as they were then. Or maybe they had received a bad shipment and that is where my pen and all the others that this cm had issues with came from i dont know nor do i really care.

Renee - I think you are right about the possibility of a change in suppliers or a bad shipment. Like Yensid FoNaf, I have used my souvenir Disney pen for at least hundreds of autographs, with no problem whatsoever. It is easier for the majority of the furries to handle a pen of that size, in width and length. As pointed out, a ballpoint pen is also far less of a hazard to those expensive costumes.

I guess I am one of the rare ones who has never had any problem with any Disney product, unless you count having to exchange my HCOE Pal Mickey two hours after purchase - LOL. But we all know that there are "lemons" in almost every category. Most likely an entire shipment was substandard as you mentioned, which would account for the numerous complaints while others of us have been happy with the pens.

 

[bopper]

You know you are too worried about your vacation when you are worried about what pen the characters will use. A regular ol' pen is fine. Never had a problem with that.

 

[taswira]

A regular ol' pen is fine. Never had a problem with that.

No, but some of the characters may have. There are some of the furries whose "hands" make it difficult to handle skinny or short pens. That is why sometimes autographs turn out nearly illegible. However . .

I agree that "which pen to use" certainly is not worth WORRYING about. If one doesn't use the best or most suitable pen, it will not affect the number of autographs they can get.

 

[kimbac3]

a fat pen that had 4 colors to chose from. The "face" characters enjoyed picking their colors and we picked them for the "non-face" characters. We had no problems with these pens and the autograph books were quite colorful!! I bought them at Staples.. I think!
Hope this helps!!
Kimba

 

[Accentuate+]

If your talking about the blue pen with characters on it and the black mickey head on top

I love the pen I have like this. We didn't do autographs but I bought one for a souvenier and it's now my "phone pen". It's big enough and diffferent enough that I don't throw it in my purse and I've managed to keep it by the phone where it's needed.
I've been using it for phone messages, grocery lists, doodling etc for months now and it's worked great. I'm sorry you got a dud one.

 

[Accentuate+]

I've never done the autograph thing but since so many do I'm surprised they don't send the handler out with a pen for the character to use exclusively. That way they would always have the right 'tool' for the job.

Then again, someone would get upset because they wanted their autographs color coded or something and it just wouldn't be a good vacation if Goofy signed in blue ink.

 

[kimmikayb]

Earlier this month before our trip to WDW, we headed to the local Wal-Mart to get stuff for our trip and I specifically looked for a fat pen fairly long that had a tip that retracted at the push of a button. I found one in a fairly plain package that sold for $.69 at our local store. It's packaged in plastic with a thin cardboard backing. The front of that cardboard says mainstays office Ball Point Pen and then Black Ink and 0.8 mm in smaller print. The back says Ball Point Pen, has the model number 91249, and the UPC code 724328914299. Sorry, but it is MADE IN CHINA.

Anyway, that was our pen of choice for several dozen autographs last week and none of the characters seemed to have any problem with it (it is about the size of the souvenir pens that Disney sells). Even on the couple of occasions where the boys had retracted the pen, the characters they were with at the time were able to get them back open again.

-- Rob

We used this EXACT pen! It worked great!!

Plus, at 69 cents if it got lost you wouldn't feel bad!

 

[taswira]

I've never done the autograph thing but since so many do I'm surprised they don't send the handler out with a pen for the character to use exclusively. That way they would always have the right 'tool' for the job.

I think the reason they don't do that is that it would cost Disney a LOT of money. Considering how many characters in all the parks are signing thousands of autographs each day, if WDW had to provide the pen for all of them, they would probably start charging for autographs or raise the ticket price yet again to factor in that expense!

 

[eeyore29]

I was thinking of getting the retractable Sharpie marker/pens...
I want to leave the autograph book in-tact but I also want to have the autographs in my scrapbook so I thought I'd scan/copy the autograph book pages onto patterned paper or vellum and I thought marker would just show up better than a regular pen...
But then I'm worried that the Sharpie would go right thru the autograph book pages (plus I don't want to ruin any costumes either)...or are they a thicker card-stock type of paper?
Any suggestions/ideas? I know, I'm over-planning again!

WOO-HOO! THIS IS MY 100th POST!!!

 

[tigger0215]

Sharpies do tend to bleed onto the next page....
The clickie sharpies die really fast... I had one before... and they are really bulky.... if i were you, i would use a ball point pen or a washable marker.. then photo copy the autograph and glue it to patterned paper... i am a scrapbooker too pm me if you want any more tips

 

[Tinky Winks]

Eeyore29 -

I just came back from Disney and had great results with the retractable Sharpie pens. I made my children their own "personalized" autograph books by binding blank index cards and decorating the front covers with stickers and their names. The books were nice and small and easily contained in their fanny packs. After we got back I copied the autographs and shrunk them down to include in my scrapbook. The effect was great. Now, they can look through their disney scrapbook and they have the autographs right next to the characters AND they still have their intact autograph books AND the pens did not bleed into the next page!

Have a great time on your trip!

 

[BethanyF]

Scrappers will know this pen....I always bring a couple Zig Writers with me. They are as long as the retractable sharpies and thicker than a regular pen.
Depending on the character I will uncap either the bulet point or the fine tip. I think it was Gideon that fell in love with my pen and tried hiding it in his costume after giving me a thumbs up and pointing to the pen.

If you're not a scrapper, these pens can be found at almost any scrapbook store, Hobby Lobby and WalMart. Be sure to get the Writers since there are several styles of Zig brand pens.

 

[Amphigorey]

I've never done the autograph thing but since so many do I'm surprised they don't send the handler out with a pen for the character to use exclusively. That way they would always have the right 'tool' for the job.

Then again, someone would get upset because they wanted their autographs color coded or something and it just wouldn't be a good vacation if Goofy signed in blue ink.

Sometimes the character greeters do indeed have pens for the characters to use. However, that's generally up to the individual greeter, and they lose the pens pretty quickly among all the guests and bustle.

And yes, people (usually kids) have been known to complain that the character wasn't signing with THEIR pen!

As for what type of pen to use, as someone who is friends with the characters, I can tell you that they really, really like Sharpies. Beware the short ones, though; as someone mentioned previously, the short ones are just as hard as skinny pens for the characters to hold. In fact, I'd say that short is much more of a problem than skinny. That said, some people go the other way; I've seen people hand oversized overlong pencils to the characters, and those aren't easy to deal with either!

It's true that the blue Mickey pens aren't a good investment. Another point about Sharpies over ballpoints: A Sharpie will write as soon as you put pen to paper, with no effort at all. Sometimes you have to press hard or scribble to get a ballpoint to write, or the line will be inconsistent because the ink doesn't flow as well as with a Sharpie. This isn't usually much of a problem for humans, but for the characters it gets magnified.

 

[Alex2kMommy]

Thanks for the tip - I bought a (color variety) set of retractable Sharpies so we can get autographs in different colors.