Disney pin trading fakes and scrappers

[Mickey shaped world]

I have just found out about how there are fake Disney trading pins and I decided to check out my own collection. I looked for the common signs, off colour, rough edges etc and picked out the ones I think are fake.

I know it is hard to tell from a photo if they are fake but it would be good to get your opinions.
If they are fakes should I bin them?
Its a bit disappointing as I got them all from trading in the parks.
Are fake pins found a lot when trading with cast members?
Thank you for your advice

 

[JIMINYCR]

Yes... fake pins are all over the parks. For years guests have been buying huge discounted lots of pins on ebay and other sites. They want to get a deal on pins and think a pin is a pin is a pin, so I wont spend good money on pins I'm going to trade. They then go to the parks and trade their lots, so that the majority of the pins youll find on CM's lanyards are those scrappers. Disney doesnt go over the traded pins and throw them out, they keep trading them with guests. You cant find many genuine Disney pins on lanyards. Ive gotten to just buy my pins from the Disney kiosks or stores where I know they are genuine. In EP you can deal with traders by the pin station that can look closely at what you have to determine their value.
Your right that you can look for discoloring, poor quality, and signs that a pin just doesnt look right. Most guests go home from a trip, put the pins in books or on display boards and they are fine with the pins they have, proper ones or not. Wether you want to trash some pins depends on how you value your collection. I have some scrappers that I have in my pin books just because I havent parted with them yet...but I wont be trading with them.

 

[The_Jobu]

I wanted to get into pin trading as well, but didn't see the point of buying pins individually at the park just to trade them. I'd like to get a bunch I don't care to keep so I can have fun trading them away. But if the online pin lots are fake, that's not fun.

 

[Mickey shaped world]

It is awful that there are so many fake pins about :/

 

[JIMINYCR]

I wanted to get into pin trading as well, but didn't see the point of buying pins individually at the park just to trade them. I'd like to get a bunch I don't care to keep so I can have fun trading them away. But if the online pin lots are fake, that's not fun.

A lot of people target buying those specific pins that are connected to their favorite character, attraction, theme or other Disney interest. They buy to keep them and they will never trade them away. I have pin books full of specifially themed things. One of my favorite is full of Disney Train/Railroad pins. Trading can be fun but you have to be selective when dealing with park CM lanyards.

 

[Hcalvert]

I started trading pins this last trip. What one person suggested to me was to carry a small magnet with me. Authentic Disney pins are not magnetized. Of course, this doesn't get all the fakes, but it has helped in some situations. Another tip someone else gave me is that Disney pins are not smooth on the printed side. Looking at your picture and based on that theory, your cupcake and Belle cup seem to be authentic as it has ridging. I would be careful with the round ones (railroad & Mickey hat), I saw several of those at the parks and their weight felt funny and they almost seemed like plastic to me, which would not be magnetic. I only trade the pins that I believe to be authentic and just trade for ones that I like. It was fun as I had some interesting conversations with CMs and other parkgoers during my trip.

 

[Mickey shaped world]

Thank you for the advice, I will be sure to take a closer look when pin trading on my next trip

 

[Dr. Ludwig von Drake]

The scrapper thing is sad. We first visited in 2002 and my kids started trading right away. Cast members had nice pins back then. Now all they display is trash. I've talked with cast members about this (they usually start the conversation when the see the real pins on our lanyards) and the general consensus is that unscrupulous and greedy adults ruined pin trading. Partly with fake pins, but also with overly aggressive trading tactics.

We still buy pins, but just as collectibles / souvenirs.

 

[Phonedave]

A lot of people target buying those specific pins that are connected to their favorite character, attraction, theme or other Disney interest. They buy to keep them and they will never trade them away. I have pin books full of specifially themed things. One of my favorite is full of Disney Train/Railroad pins. Trading can be fun but you have to be selective when dealing with park CM lanyards.

That is what I do. I buy Donald pins, and I also buy any "special" pins that I find interesting (F&W, DVC, AP - when I had one, etc). I look at the limited edition pins, and if I like them, I buy them. If not, I pass.

I actually keep them on the original display cards, and store them in a bin.

I don't really blame parents for the scrapper epidemic. Many people had no idea. They got a "tip" that if their kids wanted to trade pins, they could buy them in bulk on ebay cheaply. Why not, they most likely thought people were getting rid of them. Heck, my wife has a bunch of Littlest Pet Shop toys on ebay right now. A "mystery bag" of I think 3 + an accessory is $10. They are all authentic. All of the kids are older and no longer into them. So it is not unheard of to get things in bulk cheaply.

-dave

 

[dreamfinder]

Quick glance at your pictures I see at least 5 fakes. That said, pin trading is a really tough sell now. A very large percentage of the pins on CMs lanyards are fakes, or ones that have little value (sets broken up, free pins from promotions etc). So paying full price to buy a pin from Disney to turn around and trade it for something that is fake isn't worth it. By all means buy pins from the kiosks to keep, but anything on a lanyard probably came from the same bulk lot on eBay that everyone else bought.

 

[Figments Friend]

I would also like to add that anyone wishing to deal with the visiting Pin Traders who set up shop on the assortment of outdoor tables at Epcot in front of Pin Central or elsewhere be cautious -
A few years ago i found out the hard way these are not always trustworthy sources for aquiring pins via 'trading'.

Traders beware -
Some of these people are locals who are eBay resellers who are preying on uneducated pin traders.
They usually have several binders packed full with seemingly amazing pins but when you ask about a trade and find something you like, they usually don't want anything you have to trade.
Instead, they try to talk you into buying a pin or pins from the Disney kiosk behind them to trade with...and of course they usually want the most expensive or whatever the current Limited Edition series is.
It is a SCAM - you have been warned.

This happened to me....but i realized these people i was dealing with were con-artists in disguise a little too late.
I 'traded' two bought pins for what turned out to be CM Lanyard pins i had been looking for ( although genuine ) for two freshly purchased Limited Editions.
I had my eye on a WDI Exclusive LE pin these people had, but they were trying to get me to buy TWO pins in exchange, and that is definitely a red flag.
Rules for trading dictate it's only ONE pin per ONE pin trade.

I felt so stupid after being 'tricked' to buy the LE.s for the CM pins after a realized what was going on....but i do like the two i ended up with, so consoled myself with that thought.
However, this is s shifty practive and i wanted to warn others of this scam that is likely still going on somewhere.

I only trade with CMs and i have always found great pins on their lanyards and cork boards in the past.
Yes, there IS a lot of 'junk' out there but you can avoid it if you keep your wits about you.
It's all about knowing what you are looking at.

-


-

 

[Mickey shaped world]

I would also like to add that anyone wishing to deal with the visiting Pin Traders who set up shop on the assortment of outdoor tables at Epcot in front of Pin Central or elsewhere be cautious -
A few years ago i found out the hard way these are not always trustworthy sources for aquiring pins via 'trading'.

Traders beware -
Some of these people are locals who are eBay resellers who are preying on uneducated pin traders.
They usually have several binders packed full with seemingly amazing pins but when you ask about a trade and find something you like, they usually don't want anything you have to trade.
Instead, they try to talk you into buying a pin or pins from the Disney kiosk behind them to trade with...and of course they usually want the most expensive or whatever the current Limited Edition series is.
It is a SCAM - you have been warned.

This happened to me....but i realized these people i was dealing with were con-artists in disguise a little too late.
I 'traded' two bought pins for what turned out to be CM Lanyard pins i had been looking for ( although genuine ) for two freshly purchased Limited Editions.
I had my eye on a WDI Exclusive LE pin these people had, but they were trying to get me to buy TWO pins in exchange, and that is definitely a red flag.
Rules for trading dictate it's only ONE pin per ONE pin trade.

I felt so stupid after being 'tricked' to buy the LE.s for the CM pins after a realized what was going on....but i do like the two i ended up with, so consoled myself with that thought.
However, this is s shifty practive and i wanted to warn others of this scam that is likely still going on somewhere.

I only trade with CMs and i have always found great pins on their lanyards and cork boards in the past.
Yes, there IS a lot of 'junk' out there but you can avoid it if you keep your wits about you.
It's all about knowing what you are looking at.

-


-

Thank you for the warning, I'm sorry you had such a bad experience, I've always kept away from the guys with the books of pins because they always look unfriendly. I'm going to turn the pins I am sure are fakes into a art project, I don't want adding more fakes into the trading circulation. I will still try a bit of trading on my next trip but I will be more selective this time. Though I have found some good pins in the past trading with cast members, my best trade was for a splash mountain spinning pin. Lol unless its fake too

 

[Bairstow]

The scrapper thing is sad. We first visited in 2002 and my kids started trading right away. Cast members had nice pins back then. Now all they display is trash. I've talked with cast members about this (they usually start the conversation when the see the real pins on our lanyards) and the general consensus is that unscrupulous and greedy adults ruined pin trading. Partly with fake pins, but also with overly aggressive trading tactics.

We still buy pins, but just as collectibles / souvenirs.

Honestly, if anything ruined pin trading it was when Disney's merch division actively started trying to make pin trading a "thing" in the '2000s. Now, prices for anything interesting have totally ballooned and the frequency and size of new releases makes keeping up even with specific characters all but impossible for anyone who isn't a total fanatic.

 

[thomas998]

I have just found out about how there are fake Disney trading pins and I decided to check out my own collection. I looked for the common signs, off colour, rough edges etc and picked out the ones I think are fake.
View attachment 304407
View attachment 304408
View attachment 304409
I know it is hard to tell from a photo if they are fake but it would be good to get your opinions.
If they are fakes should I bin them?
Its a bit disappointing as I got them all from trading in the parks.
Are fake pins found a lot when trading with cast members?
Thank you for your advice

Kind of depends on what you mean by fakes. I am willing to bet money that some of those pins were produced in the same factory as official Disney pins... but they were likely set aside because the quality wasn't up to snuff... or in some cases were simply made after the lot for Disney was made and are for all intents and purposes real Disney pins, as some of these factories will get an order to make 50,000 pins of some Disney character and the factory then churns out 60,000 instead and sell the extra 10,000 to someone that ends up selling them on ebay, so the question is whether that pin is really a fake or simply a pin that slipped out the backdoor of the factory.

If you want to get into collecting pins with the hope of selling them at sometime in the future at a profit, then don't trade pins with cast members... In fact don't trade with anyone in the parks except for some of the pin traders that show up on weekends at EPCOT... And then only trade for pins that come with the original card. That is about the only way you'll be certain of getting an official Disney pin beyond buying them from the Disney shops.


Now if you just enjoy trading pins as a diversion and because you think some of the pins you get are cool to have then just trade for whatever you like and buy your pins from ebay in bulk the way most every person trading pins currently does. When my kids initially started trading we would use official Disney pins that had been purchase from a Disney store. That ended after I started looking at the pins and on the internet and realize that every pin they had traded for was as you say a fake/scrapper/whatever and everyone of them was acquired from my kids trading with a castmember... At that point it was fine, if even the castmembers are going to keep flooding the market with the junk pins then the only logical thing is to do like the cast members and use junk pens as well. Then when you trade junk pins and collect junk pins the only thing that matter is whether your kid or you like what you ended up with.

 

[thomas998]

Thank you for the warning, I'm sorry you had such a bad experience, I've always kept away from the guys with the books of pins because they always look unfriendly. I'm going to turn the pins I am sure are fakes into a art project, I don't want adding more fakes into the trading circulation. I will still try a bit of trading on my next trip but I will be more selective this time. Though I have found some good pins in the past trading with cast members, my best trade was for a splash mountain spinning pin. Lol unless its fake too

View attachment 304931

We've found that the pin traders there come in a variety of flavors and some are really nice and helpful... But some are there looking for scoop up specific pins, often from kids that aren't aware of the value of the pins they have and that they are trading for, I was there once when a watch one trade some kid a low end pin for a limited edition Halloween Party pin that was worth 3 or 4 times the chip Winnie the Pooh the kid ended up with, not a nice thing to do to some 9 or 10 year old.

 

[thomas998]

The scrapper thing is sad. We first visited in 2002 and my kids started trading right away. Cast members had nice pins back then. Now all they display is trash. I've talked with cast members about this (they usually start the conversation when the see the real pins on our lanyards) and the general consensus is that unscrupulous and greedy adults ruined pin trading. Partly with fake pins, but also with overly aggressive trading tactics.

We still buy pins, but just as collectibles / souvenirs.

It takes two to tango and if you think about it the destruction of the pin trading was brought about by the guests and Disney... Disney was at fault for not training cast members on how to spot the bad pins and refusing to trade for them, and I know the CMs are supposed to trade when asked but if they want to force the cast members to trade no matter what then they should also have the cast members set aside pins they trade for that appear to be junk - they don't do that... Then you end up with a market where the majority of the pins are junk you can't expect guest to give their kids real pins to play the game when they are only going to get junk... It took both side to destroy the pin market and that really is what happened.

 

[dreamfinder]

Kind of depends on what you mean by fakes. I am willing to bet money that some of those pins were produced in the same factory as official Disney pins... but they were likely set aside because the quality wasn't up to snuff... or in some cases were simply made after the lot for Disney was made and are for all intents and purposes real Disney pins, as some of these factories will get an order to make 50,000 pins of some Disney character and the factory then churns out 60,000 instead and sell the extra 10,000 to someone that ends up selling them on ebay, so the question is whether that pin is really a fake or simply a pin that slipped out the backdoor of the factory.

If only it were that simple. Most of the ones that end up in the bulk eBay batches are definitely not just overruns. Yes, it may be the same factory, and even using the same molds, but often the metal is obviously a different material and they are made cheaper. They realized that if they could make a pin for 15 cents, and still get paid the same for one that cost them 20 cents to make, why not make a few extra cents profit per pin.

 

[thomas998]

If only it were that simple. Most of the ones that end up in the bulk eBay batches are definitely not just overruns. Yes, it may be the same factory, and even using the same molds, but often the metal is obviously a different material and they are made cheaper. They realized that if they could make a pin for 15 cents, and still get paid the same for one that cost them 20 cents to make, why not make a few extra cents profit per pin.

Possible with some of them... but when we've gotten the bulk pins from ebay you'll find that a good many are the same as the official pins when it comes to the metal. Reality is Disney is already pushing those factories to use the cheapest metal they can get away with to increase the Disney profits, there isn't a whole lot of corner to be cut with the metal. Most of the cost cuts seem to be in the enamel that is often the wrong color or way to thin on the really bad pins.

 

[RunRun101]

I'm new to trading. I am waiting for one of those huge eBay orders in the mail and I just now and learning about this. I completely get where everyone is coming from. Just making it clear, how does it make it unfun? I understand you see all the same pins, but does it matter if it's authentic? A pin is a pin as some might say. THIS IS NOT MY OPINION. I'm just wondering thoughts. I will most likely be wearing these casually not trading. I already have some pins directly from the park so I will use those to trade. I just find it unfortunate people have to spend so much money. Its a price (see what I did there) I guess you have to face when collecting anything.