Selling off pin collection...

[pikesurfer]

Hi Everyone~

I came across this site while searching the web for some information on Disney pins and their worth. Read through a few very informative posts and thought I would join to see if anyone can help my fiance and I out.

My fiance's mother was an avid, repeat AVID Disney collector--pins, drawings, statues, christmas ornaments, etc. She unfortunately passed away two years ago, and my fiance inherited her entire Disney collection. There are some things that are too important to her to let go of, but her mother had always intended to sell the Disney pins, so we started looking at how to do it.

I have spent the past few weeks trying to catalog as many of the pins as I could, and have finally given up. At last count there were over 1,000--about 50% limited edition, mostly tinker bell or Peter Pan related, from Disney Store, DisneyLand, WDW, Euro Disney, Disney Japan, Passholder Exclusives, Castmember Exclusives, Commemorative, etc etc.

I have been able to catalog all of the limited edition pins in my quest for information. But I guess the question is, how does one go about selling them? I've checked ebay, and it seems like a majority of what's on their are grab bags of common pins for cheap prices. The pins we have are almost all sold out or retired, many limited release. Are there collectors who would pay for these pins?

At this point, we would be happy just to be able to get what they were originally worth on some of the more common pins...

Thank you all for any help you may be able to provide. It's an understatement to say that we are at a loss with what to do with these boxes of pins.

 

[ZapperZ]

First of all, I'm sorry to hear about your fiance's mother, even though it was a couple of years ago.

Secondly, selling the pins depends entirely on how much effort you want to put in in trying to figure out which ones are the valuable ones, and which aren't. The valuable ones probably should be sold either individually, or if there is a set, sold in a complete set. The less-valuable ones you could sell them in lots.

How do you determine the valuable ones versus the non-valuable ones? This is where you have to decide if you want to put in that much of an effort. If you do, I strongly suggest you get a copy of Tomart's Disneyana - Guide to Pin Trading. Depending on the edition, it lists all the known Disney pins in existence, and their rough values. This will at least tell you which pins you should pay attention to, and which you can sell in those lots.

The other route that you can take, and this is probably more tedious, is to actually browse through ebay and see if there are any pins identical to what you have, or of similar grouping. You can then evaluate the value of the pins that you have.

Lastly, you might want to visit www.dizpins.com and go on their dizpins board. It is a public forum just like this where you can sell your pins, or ask around the many serious pin collectors on the value of certain pins that you intend to sell. You can usually get quite an accurate response to any pin question that you have.

So, do you happen to have any Donald pins? I'd buy those from you!

Zz.

 

[tigsmom]

I have gotten quite a few nice pins off of ebay. The retired and limited editions can bring in a decent price.

dizpins is a great site (as suggested above) and you should get some help there. I'm looking for any retired or special edition Little Mermaid pins and some "different" Minnie Mouse pins and any relating to fire service. PM me and let me know if you have any that fit the bill and we can talk. :wave:

 

[theladybadger]

And don't forget pinpics.com

That site also has an extensive database of Disney pins as well as listing the original sale value of some of them. I hope that will help you.

 

[maelstrom]

Ebay is a good place for pins. Let me know when you put them up and what your username is, because I love collecting pins from Disneyland and the overseas parks.

 

[WDWFigment]

Just put them on eBay. As long as you put up a good item title and description, you don't have to know what pins are "valuable" as there will be at least two people bidding on your auction who will do that for you. Just start all the auctions at $.01. For an individual seller, I've sold quite a lot on eBay, and I always start my auctions at $.01. You get more people watching the auction that way, which means more last second bids (you can look me up; username: baronbeowulfgang; feedback: 313). Hope that helps!

 

[ClemsonTigger]

I would echo that Ebay is your best bet. Set up an account and also use PayPal as some shy away from having to use money orders. Use your digital camera, because the picture does a lot to sell the pin. You will also generally get less for sets than you would if you sold them individually.

You said you have been cataloging them, that's good. Also use the info on pinpics. They give a lot of good background info. Good to have LE number (LE of 1000 for example). Also define cast, cast lanyard, DL, DP etc. the more info, the better you pins will pop up on various searches.

I would love to get a look at your tink pins...but we can't do that here....

Good luck!