How do you enjoy pin trading in the parks with all the fakes and scrappers?

kollerbear

DIS Veteran
Joined
May 25, 2011
Hi! I am relatively new to Disney pin trading-- I did a lot of research before my trip, bought a lot of sealed bags of mystery pins on eBay before going (and they were all real!) and did a lot of trading on my trip in January 2017. I had fun, but definitely discovered that the vast majority of the pins I was seeing (like, maybe 75-80% of the pins) were fakes or scrappers. I did my best to take my time without being rude, and returned several pins to cast members after realizing they were fake. What I walked away with felt like a good mix of pins, but I also kind of thought that possibly the Hidden Mickey pins (which I hadn't seen before) might just be a slightly lower quality pin than open edition ones I'd bought.

WELL.

I started trading on Instagram the past week or so, and I took the time to sit down and pour over the pins I brought back from the park. I discovered that 10 out of the 11 that I walked away with were almost definitely fakes (albeit really good ones) and the 11th might be as well.

I do NOT want to put more fakes into circulation, but I also am super discouraged because this means that the % of fakes on the lanyards and boards was probably closer to something like 95% or higher. I am wondering how you guys manage this. Personally, I like the hobby and I like the pins. But I also don't have an infinite amount of money to pour into this hobby if every pin I find is ethically un-tradeable. Also, I would love for my daughter to be able to participate in this one day. While I don't mind if the 15 real pins I buy her turn into 15 fakes ones overnight, I will NOT pull off those 15 fake pins every night of our trip and just keep replacing them with real ones in a Sisyphean effort to do the right thing.

What do you guys do? I am really curious how anyone keeps their chin up trading pins these days. I feel like you either have fun OR you care about the ethics of the situation, but you kind of can't do both.
 
I have got very picky, both in the time of day I do pin trading and where and who I trade with. For example I will do pin trading only in the first 2 hours of park opening. I use PIN PICS to sort the real from the fakes. I will trade maybe 6 pins on day one, then check pinpics. Any fakes will get retraded on day 2 etc etc.

I have never bought pins online, only in Disney Stores or in the park shops. When I go to the parks I buy maybe 4 pins to add to my trading pot. I have about 20 pins which are my traders and these are sorted into real and fake. The fake pins have all come from trades in the park with CM's , either from lanyards or pin boards. I will trade these in the parks with CM's only. I also trade my real pins with the CMs but only if I am more sure the pin I am getting is real. After a while it becomes easy to spot the real pins, as they are the more unusual ones, or in more less obvious places. trades with senior management CM's walking around the park compared with a pin board in a shop on Main Street.
 
I have got very picky, both in the time of day I do pin trading and where and who I trade with. For example I will do pin trading only in the first 2 hours of park opening. I use PIN PICS to sort the real from the fakes. I will trade maybe 6 pins on day one, then check pinpics. Any fakes will get retraded on day 2 etc etc.

I have never bought pins online, only in Disney Stores or in the park shops. When I go to the parks I buy maybe 4 pins to add to my trading pot. I have about 20 pins which are my traders and these are sorted into real and fake. The fake pins have all come from trades in the park with CM's , either from lanyards or pin boards. I will trade these in the parks with CM's only. I also trade my real pins with the CMs but only if I am more sure the pin I am getting is real. After a while it becomes easy to spot the real pins, as they are the more unusual ones, or in more less obvious places. trades with senior management CM's walking around the park compared with a pin board in a shop on Main Street.


Thank you... This is more of a middle way apart from the "never ever recirculate fake pins" advice I see. If I didn't have the opportunity to recoup my losses it just turns into a losing battle. I don't mind making some into magnets if I really like the pin anyway, but I also would like to keep collecting. I buy a lot from the parks, too, and am almost certain I have never purchased a fake pin or scrapper, partly because I have been sure to buy only sealed sets or individual pins (at pretty high prices or auctions) from sellers that have no records of fakes.

I was wondering if you have had luck at particular places' boards you might recommend? Or do you pretty much stick to lanyards?

Thanks again for the tips.
 


the way I see it I got the fake pins in the park so they go back to the parks. They would be there anyway if I had not traded for them.

My last trip I started looking for the pin boards in the shops, then seeing if any other guests were looking at them. Most often guests would do the same as me, look and see but not trade for anything on the board. I would then say hi, are you doing pin trading and would you like to trade with me? Most of the times the other guests would be happy to trade, as like me they could see the boards were full of fakes.

You got to get creative and make it fun for yourself. Know that the more common places will be full of fakes as thats where the more casual pin traders who buy the ebay job lots of scrappers will do most of their trading.

Also look out for senior management just walking around the park, or go to the hotels during busy times in the parks. The hotels will have low foot traffic during the day when everyone is in the parks, therefore you have a higher chance of finding real pins. There was a CM with a pin board one day in World of Disney, a place most people would not think of looking.
 


Hi! I am relatively new to Disney pin trading-- I did a lot of research before my trip, bought a lot of sealed bags of mystery pins on eBay before going (and they were all real!) and did a lot of trading on my trip in January 2017. I had fun, but definitely discovered that the vast majority of the pins I was seeing (like, maybe 75-80% of the pins) were fakes or scrappers. I did my best to take my time without being rude, and returned several pins to cast members after realizing they were fake. What I walked away with felt like a good mix of pins, but I also kind of thought that possibly the Hidden Mickey pins (which I hadn't seen before) might just be a slightly lower quality pin than open edition ones I'd bought.

WELL.

I started trading on Instagram the past week or so, and I took the time to sit down and pour over the pins I brought back from the park. I discovered that 10 out of the 11 that I walked away with were almost definitely fakes (albeit really good ones) and the 11th might be as well.

I do NOT want to put more fakes into circulation, but I also am super discouraged because this means that the % of fakes on the lanyards and boards was probably closer to something like 95% or higher. I am wondering how you guys manage this. Personally, I like the hobby and I like the pins. But I also don't have an infinite amount of money to pour into this hobby if every pin I find is ethically un-tradeable. Also, I would love for my daughter to be able to participate in this one day. While I don't mind if the 15 real pins I buy her turn into 15 fakes ones overnight, I will NOT pull off those 15 fake pins every night of our trip and just keep replacing them with real ones in a Sisyphean effort to do the right thing.

What do you guys do? I am really curious how anyone keeps their chin up trading pins these days. I feel like you either have fun OR you care about the ethics of the situation, but you kind of can't do both.
You realize sealed packs don't mean anything?
 
@here757 The sealed mystery packs?? That are in sealed Disney branded original packaging? I have done a lot of research and have never seen anyone say that a sealed unopened mystery bag can be faked. In fact many have said that the economics of that wouldn't make sense. I know that fake pins can be placed onto real cards and slipped into a sticky plastic sealed sleeve, but totally sealed mystery bags seem safe to me. I have never paid less than $2.25 per pin.
 
@here757 the more research I have done the more I am very confident everything I have bought was real so far, but if there is an epidemic of fake sealed mystery bags I would be really glad to know about that since I (and many people in the community on boards and such) take that as being proof it came directly from a Disney store. (Probably one of the cast member outlets.)
 
@here757 the more research I have done the more I am very confident everything I have bought was real so far, but if there is an epidemic of fake sealed mystery bags I would be really glad to know about that since I (and many people in the community on boards and such) take that as being proof it came directly from a Disney store. (Probably one of the cast member outlets.)
Ok.. well good luck
 

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