Pin, and Button, trading probably started the day more than one of them was made, and someone wanted one they couldn't get.
All kinds of pins and buttons are made, and traded, but since this is the DIS board, and most of us posting here collect and trade Disney pins, I'll just keep the discussion to those.
The first Disney pins, that we would recognize as pins, not buttons, were made sometine in the mid 1950/s and sold at
Disneyland. They are released on a schedule, that, as fare as I know is only known to the disney Poswers That Be!!
Most pins are limited, by number or release time, but the first pin released as a limited edition and advertised as such is the Main Street Galary 1st Anniv. pin. It was released in Sept. 2998.
Disney announced their entry into the pin trading arna at the end of 1999, with the start of CM's with lanyards, and pin events at the parks.
This is just a short, off the top of my head as I recall note. Corrections, and additions are welcome.
Is pin trading a tradition? Well, it is with some people, and has been for many years.
OH - as an interesting, to me at least, side not. When Disney started releasing the first set of the pins of the mont in January 2000 the handled the pin release in their usual way. ie: A moderate number of people will want the pins in Jan. Feb and Mar., the released 5000 of each pin. For April, May, and June they released 150000 of each pin, since more people woudl be at the parks. July, August and Sept. saw 75000 of each pin released. October, November and December they released 3000 of each pin. The collectors screamed!! What on earth was Disney doing?!?! How could we complete our sets!!!! What Disney was doing was releasing pins in the usual number based on park attendance and anticiped sales. Fine for past years, but now everyone was collecting and wanted ocmpleted sets without going to the secondary market. Disney didn't make that mistake again. All other sets have been realeased with the same number of pins each month.
