Pin Trading after reopening; Still on, or just a memory?

[JIMINYCR]

Absolutely not between guests. Cast members will trade anything that is a Disney pintrader.

Was there any such social custom or rule about "forced" trades at any time????

You can trade or not trade with anyone. Its your choice ... if someone wants to trade with you and you do not want to trade, you may refuse. Many guests go to the parks wearing lanyards full of pins with no desire to trade away any. CM's will trade with adults as long as they dont have the same pin already on their lanyard or if the pin isnt a Disney pin.

CM's who wear green lanyards are able to trade with children only. That gives children a better chance to get pins they want. Sometimes they have special pins on them just for kids to trade.

 

[MarvelCharacterNerd]

I targeted one pin at Disney Sea and another that caught my eye at DL Paris ......both hard to get considering I was coming out of San Francisco......especially the Paris one. I had a Disney Sea lanyard with 2 special (at least to me)pins and 2 pins only on it. Even if someone offered me 20 pins I would have never taken the trade.

My in-law told me(say 15 years back before I even knew about such trading) don't wear that lanyard at WDW because if a kid comes up to you and wants the pin, according to custom and accepted social practices I was required to trade. It sounded ridiculous and I dismissed it as nonsense and told her custom or no custom ain't nobody be gettin these pins. She was very ticked at me.

Was there any such social custom or rule about "forced" trades at any time????

Yeah, no. Guests are never required to trade. Cast members however, must. As one of my fave CM's always says when I stop to trade with him and ask if I can see his pins on his lanyard, he says "no - but you can see Mickey's pins!" Love CM's.

 

[MarvelCharacterNerd]

I've never understood pin trading. Why would I want to trade something I specifically chose to purchase for something else?

Obviously plenty of people like it and enjoy it, but the whole concept doesn't make sense to me (unless you can get free pins somehow and trade those for ones you actually want).

Why do people trade baseball cards? Or pogs? Or vinylmations? Or any other collectible in history? It's part of the experience of collecting for a lot of collectors, plus it extends your 'reach' of what you can get for your collection. For example, if I have a bunch of pins released in CA, then when I go to FL I can trade those CA pins for FL pins and both parties are happy at what they otherwise couldn't have easily gotten for themselves. It's certainly not required to trade to collect, however, I wouldn't have the collection I have without trading. And it's fun and social.

 

[UNCgolf]

Why do people trade baseball cards? Or pogs? Or vinylmations? Or any other collectible in history? It's part of the experience of collecting for a lot of collectors, plus it extends your 'reach' of what you can get for your collection. For example, if I have a bunch of pins released in CA, then when I go to FL I can trade those CA pins for FL pins and both parties are happy at what they otherwise couldn't have easily gotten for themselves. It's certainly not required to trade to collect, however, I wouldn't have the collection I have without trading. And it's fun and social.

Those are fundamentally different from pins, though. You can't buy a specific baseball card the way you can buy specific pins you want (well, you can to an extent, but not from a regular retail outlet). If the pins all came in random packs (like baseball cards) and you couldn't pick out exactly what you wanted, it would be different. Most people trading baseball cards or other things like that are trying to fill out their collection and they may have 6 copies of one card and 0 of another, but that's not by choice. It's by random chance. With the Disney pins, you'd have to intentionally buy multiples solely for the purpose of trading them.

I do understand it when it comes to limited edition pins and other things that you can't easily find and purchase for yourself (as in your California/Florida example), but that certainly seems to be the minority of available pins.

 

[MarvelCharacterNerd]

Those are fundamentally different from pins, though. You can't buy a specific baseball card the way you can buy specific pins you want (well, you can to an extent, but not from a regular retail outlet). If the pins all came in random packs (like baseball cards) and you couldn't pick out exactly what you wanted, it would be different. Most people trading baseball cards or other things like that are trying to fill out their collection and they may have 6 copies of one card and 0 of another, but that's not by choice. It's by random chance. With the Disney pins, you'd have to intentionally buy multiples solely for the purpose of trading them.

I do understand it when it comes to limited edition pins and other things that you can't easily find and purchase for yourself (as in your California/Florida example), but that certainly seems to be the minority of available pins.

Tons of LE's come out all over the world on a weekly basis (when everything is open). Hardcore collectors trade worldwide. If I didn't have friends - who I met through trading - covering me for releases in Asia, Europe and yes, Florida, my collection would be a lot smaller - as would theirs as I get pins locally for them. People who get seriously into pin collection - unless they are VERY rich, and there are a few of those - need to trade to expand their collections.

In the parks, most people start trading by buying a starter set/booster set. This contains a number of pins - usually 6 or 8. Very few people buy starter sets to keep them. They're meant to be traded. Often they'll feature one popular character - like Stitch or Tinker Bell - that a child might want to keep, but then they would trade the Goofy, the Pluto, the Minnie, etc. Pin trading at Disney (or so the story goes) started because an exec saw people trading pins at the Olympics and saw that as an opportunity for Disney. #genius

The other way people often start trading and collecting is by buying mystery packs - just like those packs of baseball cards you mentioned. So they wind up with duplicates and trade to try to finish the set.

And yet another way is by someone seeing a pin on a lanyard or on a board or in a book and saying "hey, I like that pin, how can I buy it?" and the person/CM replying "you can't buy this one, but if you get (buy) another pin, you can trade for this one that you like". That first trade is the 'gateway drug' to get you hooked. lol

 

[UNCgolf]

Tons of LE's come out all over the world on a weekly basis (when everything is open). Hardcore collectors trade worldwide. If I didn't have friends - who I met through trading - covering me for releases in Asia, Europe and yes, Florida, my collection would be a lot smaller - as would theirs as I get pins locally for them. People who get seriously into pin collection - unless they are VERY rich, and there are a few of those - need to trade to expand their collections.

In the parks, most people start trading by buying a starter set/booster set. This contains a number of pins - usually 6 or 8. Very few people buy starter sets to keep them. They're meant to be traded. Often they'll feature one popular character - like Stitch or Tinker Bell - that a child might want to keep, but then they would trade the Goofy, the Pluto, the Minnie, etc. Pin trading at Disney (or so the story goes) started because an exec saw people trading pins at the Olympics and saw that as an opportunity for Disney. #genius

The other way people often start trading and collecting is by buying mystery packs - just like those packs of baseball cards you mentioned. So they wind up with duplicates and trade to try to finish the set.

And yet another way is by someone seeing a pin on a lanyard or on a board or in a book and saying "hey, I like that pin, how can I buy it?" and the person/CM replying "you can't buy this one, but if you get (buy) another pin, you can trade for this one that you like". That first trade is the 'gateway drug' to get you hooked. lol

That makes sense.

I just saw the massive amounts of pins for sale individually at World of Disney as well as other stores throughout the parks and resorts. Literally hundreds and hundreds of different pins. Made me think that it would be completely impossible to collect all of them and so people would just buy the ones they actually liked.

 

[MarvelCharacterNerd]

That makes sense.

I just saw the massive amounts of pins for sale individually at World of Disney as well as other stores throughout the parks and resorts. Literally hundreds and hundreds of different pins. Made me think that it would be completely impossible to collect all of them and so people would just buy the ones they actually liked.

And in that you are absolutely correct - plenty of people buy pins as souvenirs in the same way you'd buy a magnet or a plush or a pair of ears. But the step into trading generally involves what I outlined above with those addictive starter and mystery sets!

And believe it or not, there are plenty of people who seek to become 'completists' and get every pin ever made related to their collection - be it a movie, a character, an attraction, etc. There are people with relatively 'small' collections who have several hundred pins. And I've known people with over 10,000 pins. Rare, desirable pins can sell for thousands of dollars each (though I think that secondary market cost currently is super-inflated). Fake pins on ebay sell for pennies. It's a far more expensive 'hobby' than a lot of people realize for those getting into it very seriously. But I'd guess collectors are maybe 10% of people pin trading, whereas the rest enjoy it for the length of their theme park visit and then don't look at them again until their next park trip. Either way, it's still fun to do and a great way to interact with Cast Members and other guests. And you never know when you'll make a new friend or run into a CM looking to 'make magic' who finds the exact hidden mickey pin you were looking for to complete a set. #iheartcms

 

[hopemax]

I've never understood pin trading. Why would I want to trade something I specifically chose to purchase for something else?

Obviously plenty of people like it and enjoy it, but the whole concept doesn't make sense to me (unless you can get free pins somehow and trade those for ones you actually want).

Because, A. When Disney discontinues pin styles they go to the outlet / CM stores where you can purchase them for as low as $.99 each. We would stock up anytime we could get pins for $3 or less. And B. Disney has designed a collectible series of pins that are originally, only available by trading with CMs. A year later these pins are sold, but only in a blind bag, so you can't just buy what you want.

As for trading, another aspect of the boards, is that many of the more recent ones are so large that you wouldn't have to put the guest's pins back on the board. Drop them in a themed box, and the board just becomes less and less filled. When it drops below a certain point, replace the board. At the end of the day, pins can be disinfected and put on the boards for tomorrow.

 

[WondersOfLife]

I agree that I think the boards should be kept out. Cast Members could sanitize/wipe them when a pin is replaced on the board easily.

 

[Jon81uk]

Utilizing pin boards or only hand gloved trading either way will allow it to go on.

Gloves won't make a huge difference. If someone sneezed onto a pin or the gloved hand it will still transfer to you. Treat gloves the same as bare hands, they are only as clean as the last thing they touched. Regular handwashing is better than gloves.