Mom Street USA | Pin Trading 101 - Chip and Company Podcast Radio Network

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome everybody to Mom Street, USA. My name is Jackie
aka Wishes Mama, and I am joined for this Hub
episode by our good friends Duck and Jess aka Beanie Duck.
And today's topic is pin trading one oh one. So
we haven't really talked a ton about pin trading on
Mom Street.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
We talked a.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Little bit about it on our Disney Collections for Kids
episode a few months back, but we haven't really tackled
the topic of pin trading.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
So that is today's topic.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
We're hoping to give you a little bit of background,
talk a little bit about what it is, how it works,
what to do, all those kind of basics.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
So, Duck and Jess, before we hop in, how are
you guys doing today? Doing pretty good?

Speaker 3 (00:48):
I'm like you said, I'm chomping at the bit to
get after this. I'm so excited.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yes, So let's go ahead and hop in so we
don't have to wait any further to impart our knowledge
on our lovely Mom Street listeners here. So let's talk
about pin trading, all right.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
So pin trading.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
Pin trading is as to me as somebody in this culture,
and I think a lot of people who are just
aware of it in general, like is as synonymous with
Disney Parks as Mickey Mouse is. Right Like, it is
like truly integral to the history of Disney Parks and
activities to be done within the parks.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
So throughout today, I hope we're.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Going to touch on some We're going to touch on
some of the basics, give you a little bit of
insight into you know, I think you said it earlier, Jackie,
what is pin trading? How did this get started? Some
basic information for you to know as a starter into
this world, and and just some general one oh one
information about it. So, uh, it's expensive, but it's really fun.

(01:51):
But it doesn't have to be right like, you can
you can make this. You can let it get out
of control like we did, or or like you can
keep but a very manageable, respectable langyards full of pins,
right like, you can do as normal or as extreme
about it as you want.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
And that's the fun thing about this hobby.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Right Like, you can collect a huge variety of different things,
or you can focus on one character or one movie,
or maybe there's like a particular line that releases that
you really like, like a theme. So there's lots and
lots to see and enjoy within the hobby.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
So I think that's it. I think let's talk about it.

Speaker 4 (02:25):
Yeah, so let's start with the question what is pin trading? Yes, Jess,
what is pin trading?

Speaker 2 (02:30):
I'm so glad you're gonna answer that.

Speaker 4 (02:34):
So, Disney pin trading is buying and trading either with
cast members or with guests at the parks, collectible pins
that feature Disney characters, Disney Parks, attractions, different icons of
the parks and Disney as a whole, and other you know,
different elements of just the Disney brand. So trading most

(02:54):
commonly takes place within the Disney parks. But and Disney
also puts on a yearly event. I believe they do
them in on both coasts, but definitely Orlando does one
every year where it's a separate, ticketed event. Usually takes
place like you're in the Epcot area.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
It can be in the Epcot or it's also taken
place in Contemporary before.

Speaker 4 (03:16):
So it just kind of wherever has like a big
event space in the parts, they'll host it in there
and there's special you know, limited edition pins that kind
of follow whatever the theme of that year's event is.
They show previews of upcoming pins and things like that
at those events, and you can also do pin trading
at those events obviously as well.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
No, you're actually explicitly not allowed.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
It's like, can you imagine if they did that that
people would Yeah, yep, yep, yep.

Speaker 4 (03:47):
There's also a lot of local events where people do
pin trading. A big pin group in this area is
the Central Jersey Pin Trading Group.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Just quick shout out to them.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
They're all amazing, they're help me source many piece is
in my collection.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
They're all very kind. It happened. There's lots and lots
of local groups. So just like starch all over your.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
Area, plus Disney pin Trading Facebook will come up. Ours
does like a little convention like nice, like four or
five times a year, like every couple of months.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Everybody gets together.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
They just like rent out a room and like a
Marriotte somewhere in Jersey and everybody goes and they pin trade.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
It's a lot of fun. It's really cool. Yeah, I've
seen father areas.

Speaker 4 (04:26):
I follow YouTubers that live in like Canada and they
go to pin events there. So like literally all over
wherever there is like a Disney culture, there will be
pin trading events probably happening. Also, online groups are really big.
I'm a couple of those and I've done you know,
pin trading with people all over the country and all
over the world. So there's you know, online groups as
well that you can use to pintrade. So lots of

(04:49):
different avenues to do it, but the parks is obviously
the main spot. So when you're trading in the parks
or at different events, only official Disney pins can be traded.
We'll get into none office Disney pins in a second,
but official Disney pins include pins purchased from the parks,
but also stores like Box Lunch, Hot Topic, walmarts sell them.

(05:11):
Sometimes people have found them all over the place, and
some people get them at like hobby lobby and stuff.
So like all kinds of places do sell like officially
licensed Disney pins. So those are the only ones though
that can be traded in the parks. There is also
the concept of fantasy pins, so we have one right here.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
To shows for the visual folks.

Speaker 3 (05:34):
I know that not ever, I know there's some people
listening to this, but for the visual folks, yes, so
we have watch quick example.

Speaker 4 (05:40):
So fantasy pins are fan made pins that feature Disney characters.
Oftentimes they feature like mashups of a couple of different
you know, Disney properties are like this pin which combined
Disney and Marvel with the Loki you know, gator and
Peter Pan. So those pins typically people will make and
sell on like Etsy shops and things like that. So

(06:01):
these are not official Disney pins, so they cannot be
traded in the parks. But again you might find it
like those online communities or maybe in pin events where
like people have specifically fantasy pins for trade. But you
can really only trade fantasy pins for other fantasy pins,
not for official Disney pins, at least in the parks.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yeah, that totally makes sense. So for those of you
who cannot see what we just showed, just explained it
a little bit. But it is a pin featuring the
alligator low Key from that TV show also along yes,
with a Peter Pan character kind of you know, elbow
leaning on him. So that is the fantasy pin the

(06:40):
Ducks showed on our video here. So yes, like Jess mentioned,
if you've got fantasy pins and want to trade someone
else for another fantasy pin, that is totally fine. I
don't necessarily anticipate that you find those much in the parks.
That's more kind of like those pin trading events that
you would see that type of thing at.

Speaker 3 (06:57):
Yeah, And there is like a very strong rule in
the pin trading community that like it's totally okay for
you to have fantasy pins, for you to add them
to your collection. There's all kinds of really great, interesting,
cool concepts that people can come up with, but you
need to make it clear that what you are selling
or trading is a fantasy pin and it's not an

(07:19):
official Disney pin. And most of the time people don't
care because they just want it because it's cool. But
there is a strong culture of just making sure that
you are like clearly representing exactly what it is and
that it's not an official Disney pin.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah, and that goes for any pin that you're trading,
right like if you know, and we'll get into real pins,
scrappers that kind of stuff, but like, you always just
want to be upfront, you know, be a kind human
when it comes to trading. And again, we'll talk about
that in a little bit here, but let's just do
a brief history because I feel like we can't really
talk about pin trading without talking about why in the
world we do it, like, why is it even a thing?

(07:53):
Where did it come from? So the very first Disney
pin was actually released all the way back in nineteen
thirty and it was a pin that was released in
honor of the Mickey Mouse Club but television show that
was on. So I thought that was pretty cool. But
pins have always been around as souvenirs and the Disney

(08:14):
parks from the very beginning. Trading has not always been
around from the very beginning, and we'll talk about that
here in a moment, but you can trace back to
finding these pins that were for sale as souvenirs all
the way back to the beginnings of Disneyland. So they've
definitely been in the Disney parks culture for as long
as the Disney parks have been around.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
And I will just say officially sanctioned Disney pin trading
has not been around, true, it's the beginning, very true.
Right Ever since pins became a thing, people have been
trading them, right like all the way back to I
don't know when they were created, the eighteen hundreds or.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
Something like, I knows something like that.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
I hate probably knows. Let's I was hating of.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
If I had to tag a specific friend. It would
be kate for her to just know the history of
pin badges off the top of her head.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
So I do know that they go, but I do.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
Know that the concept of pin trading goes back at
least as far as I think it was the eighteen
ninety eight something like that Olympics, like the late eighteen hundreds.
And I'll talk a little bit about like how that
influenced Disney in just a hot second, did you want
to mention anything else about souvenirs before I launched into
my little history lesson.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
No, let's hear about pin trading and the history of
that aspect.

Speaker 3 (09:26):
So the true Disney, like quote unquote sanctioned Disney pin
trading starts with the Millennium celebration, right, it starts in
nineteen ninety nine.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
If y'all remember the fun little thing of the.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
Little magic wand over to epcop ball, right, lots of
things that was cool.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
It was so cool.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
I have so many photos in front of that thing
as a small child, It's unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
I loved it. My mom loved it. She took every
angle and photo possible.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
I love. We have at least three disposable cameras worth
of just vhotos of the ep Pop ball.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
And I'm like, that fully checks AT's where and that
explains so much. Yes it does, Yes it does. Go,
DEBI go take those photos. Pass that love of the
Epcot ball onto your child. So it starts in ninety nine.
There are some.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
Possibly apocryphal stories about what influenced it to start. Then
there is a convention called the Odyssey of the Mind
that takes place I believe it's the previous year in Epcot,
in which it's like an international kind of like a
mensa situation, right, like, we're all kinds of smart people
from all over the world come and they meet Nepcot
and as a result, they bring different badges from all

(10:37):
over the world and they trade them with each other.
So the story that gets referenced and then gets referenced again,
and then gets referenced again, and no one can really
find the true origin is that this you know, Odyssey
of the Mind event took place people saw them trading.
But the other probable influence for this and even probably
influenced this Odyssey of the Mind convention is the trading

(10:59):
of pins at the Olympic Village so I think this's
got a lot of attention the last Olympic Games too. Yeah,
but it's been around basically ever since, like modern Olympics,
like in the late eighteen hundreds when we could start
making these like metal forged pins essentially. So at the Olympics,
different countries send their delegates with pins representing their home

(11:22):
country in some way. Right, Sometimes it's just a flag,
sometimes it's like a national animal, sometimes it's a full design.
It very much depends like what the theme of that
year is, right, sometimes they'll get nationally recognized artists involved.
It's a pretty big thing. And so there is trading
is like a sign of cooperation and friendship at the
Olympic Games between the delegates and of course, like some

(11:43):
are very sought after because there are some countries that
don't have a lot of delegates that are seen a
lot of athletes, so whatever it may be. But some
of them are just cool design, some of them are limited.
So Olympic Games is like a very big hub for
pin trading and sort of that's where it filled into.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
Like the cultural zeitgeist at large.

Speaker 3 (12:02):
So it's probably a combination of the two, is what
inspires the quote unquote official Disney pin trading in ninety nine,
and then it catches like wildfire because everyone's like, I
also want to trade official Disney pins, and Disney's like,
this seems like a great business opportunity.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
So so and how right they were, Oh yeah, the.

Speaker 3 (12:24):
Shameful amount of money that we have spent on pins
proves that that was a correct hypothesis. Yep.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
So within a year.

Speaker 3 (12:31):
It travels over to Disneyland, and then it's it's at
every Disney park across the world.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
Now it is a huge part.

Speaker 3 (12:38):
Of Disney I mean, well Disney World, I think is
the is the biggest one, right, That's where you'll see
the most pin boards and it's the most trader friendly.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
But it is quite literally in every Disney park across
the world you'll find people pin trading.

Speaker 4 (12:52):
Paris has a very big pin like kind of culture
yanity they do.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
I was actually very surprised that they're Oh my god,
the pins, the Disneyland Paris pins. I encourage everybody, if
you're listening to this in the car, please pull over
and look this up.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
Use your phone driving.

Speaker 3 (13:09):
I absolutely love the Disneyland Paris pins. They are beautiful,
They're like small works of art on a pin. They're incredible,
all of them. They have a couple of them.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
Yeah, And you'll hear us talk about this here in
a little bit because we'll talk about kind of where
in the parks to trade. But do keep in mind
that some of the parks are a little bit more
strict about the types of pins that they will allow
for trades. So I just want to get that out
of the gate kind of information up front. Places like
Disneyland Paris are very very strict about what types of
pins they will allow, so you will find their cast

(13:42):
members are holding some of that to a higher standard.
You'll also find that currently in the year that we
are recording this, in twenty twenty five, they are considering
this the twenty fifth anniversary of pin trading. So the
amount of boards that you can find across the parks
has skyrocketed because of that. So you'll find so many
more boards in Disney World and Disneyland especially for that reason.

(14:06):
But yeah, definitely all of the parks, and it does
ebb and flow. Some of the parks do more trading
than some of the other ones, so but it is definitely, uh,
it does exist in all of the Disney parks across
the world.

Speaker 3 (14:17):
Yeah, absolutely, And it also kind of depends on time
of year. Like we've gone at various times of year
and we've went to go look for a pin board
that was there in you know late like during Jersey
Week in November. We you know, we know it's always there,
and then we went during you know, spring or something,
and it just was never there, right, So like, yeah,
what's available kind of can fluctuate.

Speaker 4 (14:40):
COVID also impacted it a lot, Like it's of a
while for it to kind of come back in full
force after the pandemic unfortunately, But now I think it is,
you know, especially with the twenty fifth anniversary, like it
is back, but it took a while. Some of those
pin boards an action for the.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
So duck tell us, how does the trading element of
this work?

Speaker 3 (15:04):
So it is as simple as you see a pin
that you like and you politely ask would you like
to trade?

Speaker 2 (15:12):
Right? It is?

Speaker 3 (15:13):
It seems like I think a lot of people get daunted,
you know, it's a daunting prospect to just sort of
like break out of that comfort zone and just ask
somebody or cast member to trade. But it truly is
as simple as that right, you see something, you say, hey,
would you like to trade? Would you like to see
the pins I have available?

Speaker 2 (15:30):
And that's it.

Speaker 3 (15:32):
If you're trading with cast members, there are a ton
like Jack you just said, there's boards that are set up.
Some of them are like themed, like I think you
were saying before, there's like some cute sea creature themed
ones by Nemo.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, my very first trade that I ever did in
the parks. I was telling this story right before we
hopped on, but I'm happy to tell it again. It
was super early in the morning at Animal Kingdom and
I was taking the outside path to go from like
the Everest area down towards that what is currently the
remnants of Dinah Land USA that are being changed over.

(16:05):
But I walked by the Nemo building and the shows
had not started for the day, but they had a
line of cast members out and they all had little
sea creature themed pin boards. So they just look like
kind of like corkboards if you're not familiar with them.
A lot of them are Mickey mouse head shaped, some
of them are other shapes. There's some that's and that's
kind of the general thing you will find with pinboards.

(16:25):
There's lots of other fun pin boards, like in the
Brown Derby restaurant at Hollywood Studios you can find a
bowler hat that they do pin trading on. There are
traffic cones out in some of the parking lots that
you can do pin trading at. But generally speaking it's
a board of some kind. But these ones were, Yeah,
they were shaped like there was like a jellyfish and
an octopus and some other sea creatures that they had

(16:47):
pins on, which is super fun. When you see it,
you're like, oh my gosh, that's so cute. So, yes,
they definitely have some some themed ones out there that
do exist.

Speaker 3 (16:55):
Yes, so, and I love that. I just think it's
really fun. I think the bowler hat is really fun
and brander. But yeah, so generally, if you're trading with
a cast member, you'll see it on a board or
other adjacent substance. You'll just see the pins stick, you know,
just in the board itself, but also cast members have
it's usually on their hip. It's usually just like a small,

(17:17):
like you know, five by five piece of felt that
they have a couple of pins pinned too, and those
are available for trade. We actually have been told specifically
by cast members that those pins get given to them
for trade. They are not their personal collection, so you
if you see a really good one, you do not

(17:37):
have to feel bad. You are not like taking it
from the cast member. You are not like stealing their
personal pen collection that is given to them by management
for trade. So that is like all of that is
one hundred percent open and up for trading, So that
covers where you'll find it trading with a cast member.
But if you're trading with a fellow guest, there's a
number of ways that people might choose to display the pins.

(18:00):
Most commonly it's a lanyard, right, That's usually what will wear,
will have a lanyard with a coat, you know, usually
like four or five pins on it for what we're
is available to trade. Some people will have like display backpacks,
so they'll just have you know, like a crossbody or
something with like a clear window and some kind of
little like foam piece in there that they've stuck their

(18:21):
pins too. So sometimes those are just for display. Sometimes
people actually want to trade those, so again it's just
as simple as like going up and asking politely, would
you like to pin trade? There are also the other
thing I want to note is that some parks have
specific locations that are designated as pin trading locations. Right, So, well,

(18:43):
you may come across like a store that has a
pin board, it may or may not be there, but
what will generally always be there are these pin locations.
So that includes in Epcot. It's it's like a little
it's like a little I don't know what I call
it a shack. It's like a little covered building between
Connections and Club Cool.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
Yeah, it's like the breezeway, the walkway through. So if
you go past Connections and you hang a left to
go to that side, they've got all those like picnic
table esque kind of tables outside and they will set
up shop. Especially if you're there on weekends, you will
find people just those All of those tables will be
full and they've got just books and books and books

(19:25):
of pins to trade.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
And actually what I was describing before with the shack,
that was when we went during COVID they had relooking
temporarily there was it was like one of those pin
trading little like outpost stores. That's what I was thinking of.
But you're you're right, Yeah, I have since moved it back.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
Yeah, because they used to be towards the front of Epcot,
but like within the last several months they relocated them
because I think with it being the twenty fifth anniversary,
pin trading again, this you know starting the you know
really like the spring of this year has been super
super popular. So it was becoming a walkway issue where
they were meeting outside of one of the little gift

(20:02):
shops underneath Spaceship Earth, and it became an issue where
they couldn't there was not enough walkway room. So Disney
just politely asked them like, hey you can, let's relocate
over here where the walkway is four times wider to
give lots lots of space for that. So yes, that's
where you could find them.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
And it was funny.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
We were eating on my my last trip when I
went with my family around Memorial Day. We were eating
inside of Connections right on that side, and we were
like watching all of the pin traders through the big
windows and like watching everyone interact. My kids were like,
this's got out there, and it's like, okay, we'll go
look at them, like because you're always also welcome to
like just go take a look and see what people

(20:40):
have you know too, but they're like, we'll go look
at them, but you gotta eat first.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
That's a totally fair rule. Just has to say the
same thing to me.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
I have to react to eat for your center first,
say I drate.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
That's it.

Speaker 3 (20:54):
Then we can do pay takes three more bytes and
a simple water and then we can go pin trade.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
Okay, yes, okay.

Speaker 3 (21:01):
So true, so true, Oh goodness. For other pin trading spots,
there is one in Hollywood Studios. It is inside SIDS.
It is at the entrance to the left, and there
are other places. Again, like it kind of shifts. So
if you're not sure, ask a cast member if there's
like an official set up location, or just look for

(21:22):
the very excited people with pinfolios. Like it's very easy
to spot where they usually are. And sometimes it's like
an unofficial meetup, right, Like could just be locals getting
together to pin trade. We saw that one time when
we were outside of Casey's, Like we just had sat
down to go, you know, grab some corn dog nuggets
or whatever, and there just happened to be like a
little local meetup of like I don't know, it was

(21:42):
probably like ten people pin trading. It was just like
really fun and cool to say. There's like slightly before
we were as obsessed with pin trading as we were,
so like, you know, just just ask and keep your
eyes peeled, you'll see plenty of people pin trading.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah, And that being said too, you can find a
lot of like I think Jess had mentioned, like Facebook
groups or different things for pin trading, so not only
like local to wherever you are, but also like down
in the parks too, you know, so keeping an eye
out on those if you were like wanting to find
people to meet up with, keeping an eye on those
Facebook groups is always a good idea, absolutely, all right.

Speaker 4 (22:17):
So now that we kind of know how to pin trade,
where do you get pins to trade? So you can
purchase them directly from the Disney parks. There are pins
in every single gift shop all over Disney property, so
you can definitely buy them there, But there are other
retailers that sell licensed pins, so I kind of mentioned
it before Hot topic box lunch places like Walmart, and

(22:39):
then there are different.

Speaker 2 (22:40):
Types of pins within that.

Speaker 4 (22:42):
So Disney does sell like kind of pin trading starter
kits that will usually come with a lanyard and then
like four to five pins around like a different theme,
so maybe it's like Princesses or Night before Christmas or
toy story.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
Spitched or sorry dad.

Speaker 4 (22:54):
Yeah, there basically a lot of the more like popular
collections of pins that people collect, so kind of a
good way to get started and then have you know,
some pins to trade with cast members.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
Or with other guests.

Speaker 4 (23:09):
There are other retailers online that have good reputations that
you can buy from. They'll sell you know, pin bundles,
but they'll also you know, sell individual pins and different
things like that. So go Pinpro is an example. We
were talking about them before we started recording. They sell
a lot of like collections of like pins, and like

(23:31):
the accessory boards for like sixty dollars, you get like
ten pins with the board. Be sure that the description
they'll guarantees that it is authentic Disney pins. You can
also go again to the local pin trading events, like
we've talked about. Pin traders are super friendly and they're
always you know, just looking to see people come into
the hobby, you know, and get people started with collecting.

(23:53):
So especially for like kiddos and stuff.

Speaker 3 (23:56):
Yeah, I know I've given like a kid didn't have
anything to trade, man, I just gave like three stitch
pins because who cares? Right, Like, I would rather have
a kiddo who would enjoy it and like be interested
in the hobby, then like, what do I need another
three pins?

Speaker 2 (24:09):
You know what I mean? I'm far more interested.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
And I think this is the general attitude of most
people in the Disney pin trading community, right Like, I
think everyone's just more interested in people being happy and
enjoying the hobby than like, you know, the perfect trade.
Right Like, I've been traded with people when like they
really wanted something that I had, and like, even if
they didn't, some have something that I particularly wanted. I'm like,
this clearly means something to you, right like maybe Tigger's

(24:32):
your favorite Disney character, or like you're trading it for
your mom who couldn't come on this trip, or like
it reminds you of your dad who's passed, like whatever
it is. Like, I I think my we and pretty
much everybody in like the the like pin trading community
feels the same way of like, yeah, man, I'll trade
you this pin. I don't care if you don't have
anything that I want. This looks this means something to you,

(24:52):
and that means something to me, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah, I had an instance where I was meeting up
with a friend at the kind of entrance area to
Animal Kingdom and we were standing there chatting and her
husband went, you know, over to look at the pin
board and came.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
Back and ran over. He's like, I need a pin.

Speaker 1 (25:08):
She was like okay, So she handed him on and
he came back and he found the last of a
set that their son was looking to complete, and he
had seen it. It was on the board, and he
was like, I got to make sure that I go get.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
It for him.

Speaker 3 (25:22):
You know.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
So those types of things, now, you will also find
people that maybe don't think that way. Unfortunately, you know,
you're always going to have that too, So just be
aware of those types of things as well, and just
keep an eye out. But yeah, I definitely think that,
you know, the whole purpose is to enjoy the collection
and enjoy the hunt a little bit, you know, So

(25:44):
the more that you can kind of feed into that,
I think, the better time you're going to have with
pin collecting as a whole.

Speaker 3 (25:52):
Or don't or don't feed into it, because then you
turn into me neurotically running around Epcot trying to finish that.
There was a collection that was like all of the
old school EPCOT logos, and those are like, unfortunately very
commonly faked. Not that I super care about that. I
wound up like fourteen of the living with the land
looking ones and they're.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
Like all fake, and I do not care.

Speaker 4 (26:12):
I mean, like at one point completing like collection like
five times over and give me them all.

Speaker 3 (26:18):
I keep trading in hopes that like I will eventually
be able to have one full real collection.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
I'm not quite there, but like I will get there eventually. Right,
That's all gonna happen.

Speaker 3 (26:29):
And that's part of the fun of the hunt, right,
Like we'll talk about scrappers and fake ones later. And
everybody feels differently about it. It doesn't particularly bother me.
It's not the end all be all, but I some
people feel differently, and that's okay. So it is about
the hunt, and it is the fun and the joy
of finding like that collection completer.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
Or whatever for sure. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:49):
Yeah, And while we're talking about kind of where to
get pinzec in our live chat here as we're recording,
did ask about eBay. I think you you're really some
of those eBay, what Rcari any of those resale sites.
You gotta be really careful now if you don't care
whether it's authentic or not, you just like the design
of the pin, like Duck was mentioning earlier, go for

(27:12):
it if you think it's a good price, But you're
really rolling the dice on even some of those you know,
live what not sales and stuff. People may think that
they have authentic pins and they're really not, or people
may just know that they're not authentic and just claim
they are anyway.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
You know.

Speaker 1 (27:28):
Again, the world is a crazy place. You never really
know online, so in person events are really your best bet.
If you're looking to trade and buying things authentically in
box and package from Disney, Is, you know or one
of these other retailers that we mentioned, is your best
way to kind of get started.

Speaker 3 (27:46):
Yeah, I have a note in here that's like, never
buy the thousand pins for three dollars because not on
one of them are real, right, Like yeah right, And
if that does not bother you for your collection, that's okay, right,
but it is And we'll talk more about Connecticut later,
but it is not appropriate pin etiquette to knowingly buy
a fake pin and to put it into circulation, right,

(28:08):
if you don't care for your collection, that's totally cool.
Like I have a bunch of fake ones that I
don't care about because they just sit on my pin
board and it doesn't bother me.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
But I would never.

Speaker 3 (28:16):
Knowingly put back into circulation fake pins. And that's just
like good collection etiquette at large. Right, no matter what
it is, if you know you have a fake, it's
not the right thing to do to put it back
out in circulation. So please, please, please do not buy
those like here's fifty thousand Disney pins for eight dollars, right.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
Like, they're always a skin, not real. They're not real
like it, and.

Speaker 3 (28:40):
You're just gonna get like a bad quality product and
they're fake, and that's not fair to put back out
into the collection. So that's my soapbox moment for that.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
Yes, and again we'll talk more about scrappers here in
a minute. But where else just can we find the
real pens that we want to actually have.

Speaker 3 (28:56):
Not fake West, not thousand, thousand and fifty dollars.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
Sorry.

Speaker 4 (29:00):
Some other sites to find authentic, tradable Disney pins would
be Disney Pins Blog. He has quite the variety of pins.
He even has like exclusive pins to like his shop
that he's partnered with other you know to make but
he does, you know, have a variety of pins, sometimes
older pins. And then Disney Pins for You is also

(29:21):
another site. They run sales all the time, but they
have a pretty wide variety of pins as well. So
those are good places. We've purchased from both of them
many times some times. Yeah, So if you're with FIFA
Pins especially, I feel like Disney Pins for You is
good if you want like to get a bunch to
trade because they are pretty reasonably priced, but they all
have that we have gotten have been authentic pins.

Speaker 3 (29:43):
I would recommend if you're looking for something that's older,
that's like you're a collection completer, maybe Disney Pins Blog
is a good bet. And then if you're looking for
like collection fillers, right you're like I don't really have
anything of this character or I'm looking for something to trade, uh,
Disney Pins for You is good. And if you are
looking Disney Pins for You is also great for a database, right,

(30:04):
Like I have a bunch of pins here that like
I had gotten along the way. I purchased them, but
I didn't know anything about them or like I got
them off of a board and they have a great, great,
great database, so they are super good for because even
if they don't have it in stock, they have some
information on it. So it's like a good place to
find out more about your pin.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
Yeah, yeah, that's helpful. And that's Disney Pins.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
The number four, yes, and the letter you, so yes
all kind of one you know, screen name type one
word altogether. So Disney Pins, the number fourth, the letter you,
and then Disney Pins blog is just your normal, normal spelling.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
I also want to.

Speaker 4 (30:43):
Shout out his YouTube channel if you're like looking to
get into pins and pin trading. He posts like Disney
Pin news and about like events and things like that
are happening in the park. So if you're like looking
to get into it but not really sure where to go,
that's like a good starting point.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
He's got a lot of good.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
Yeah, and we can definitely link stuff. Yeah, we can
definitely link his YouTube in art show description, So if
you're listening to this later to take a look at that.
If you're like, oh that sounds interesting or I want
to take a look, I will be sure to put
his his channel in our our description.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
He also has a podcast that he puts out. It's
like a fine minute just on the top of a
podcast for no reason at all. As you're listening, I
wonder why.

Speaker 3 (31:19):
Unrelated to the current activity.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
He is a podcast that he puts out a couple
days a week. That's just like it's just quick.

Speaker 3 (31:25):
Five minute news updates as soon as anything happens, like
he'll kind of concatenate a couple days worth of news together,
you know, just sort of like release upcoming releases or
pin news or.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
Something like that.

Speaker 3 (31:37):
So it's it's he's a I totally second with Jess said,
here's a great resource. I really have enjoyed and appreciated
his content over the years, and excellent love that.

Speaker 4 (31:48):
And then the last note on where to get Disney
pins is Disney stores or Disney outlets if you're lucky
enough to still have one. I don't think there is
a single Disney store in the state of New Jersey anymore,
but we all know Jackie has one out there.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
No, I'm very lucky, and I don't like to rub
it in, but I am very lucky that I can't,
and I'm like, I know, I was just there today. Honestly,
I went today because I wanted to see if they
had any pins that I could like use for an
example of like, hey, this is what my outlet has
right now.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
I didn't.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
They didn't have any great ones. They had some that
were full price, but they didn't have any clearance pins.
But I can find from from time to time, and
it it ebbs and flows because the stock of my
Disney store kind of comes in and out. There is
one in Pennsylvania that's probably a few hours away from
you where you guys are. But but like I know,

(32:40):
I was able to find the the entire stitch Eats
collection that they did, so like this pin, this is
an angel pin where angels holding a churro was a
part of a set that I got on clearance there,
so I got I got both of my kiddo's one
of the sets to like help start their collecting and

(33:03):
their trading as like, hey, I know these pins are
cheap in comparison, and you may or may not want
to keep them, and that's totally fine, but like they're
cheap pins that we know are authentic pins to get
you started. My oldest traded away all of those. My
youngest still has that angel one on her little little
pin set because she's like, no, I like this one

(33:26):
is like Okay, that's totally fine, feel free to keep it.
But this is just this is what I could find
that was on clearance. So it was a cheaper end
to the to the Disney pin trading.

Speaker 4 (33:38):
Yep. Yeah, they will definitely get a lot of clearance
pins sometimes like limited edition pins or like different collections
that were released in the park. Those pins will kind
of make their way to the outlets. So if you
have one near you, definitely check there for like Jackie said,
some good cheap pins.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
So let's talk about carrying and transporting pins, because it's
great if you have them at home, but what in
the world are you supposed to do with them when
you get to the parks? If that's the ore to
one of these events.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
Jackie, you hold them in your arms? Oh what else
would you do?

Speaker 3 (34:11):
How else could you possibly transport so many pins?

Speaker 2 (34:15):
Let me tell you because I have out of you
sorry to learn.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
So the most common way that you will find that
people like to display pins or have pins to trade
are on lanyards. So uh, that is again the most
common You'll see lots of people in the parks that
have them, they can get a little heavy and a
little bulky depending on how many pins you have on them.
So keep that in mind. If you've got a kiddo

(34:43):
that maybe only has six or seven, probably not a
bad idea. If you get too many more than that,
it becomes a little cumbersome for kiddos to have and
to carry. And like, the pins themselves are not super big,
but when you get a couple of them, and then
you get a couple more, and then you buy a
couple more because they're cool.

Speaker 2 (35:03):
They get real heavy.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
Sometimes they are kind of big. I know our viewers,
you know, the listeners can't see it, but there is
it's a good like two inch by two inch square
of mister Potato head that I have. And that was
a mystery or pin that we got in Toy Storyland
a couple of years ago. And like, if you'll load
it up with enough of these, right, like, all it
takes is three of these, and suddenly it's very heavy,

(35:25):
especially for a kiddo.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
Yeah, so consider your kiddo's tolerance to be able to
hold that. Also, Like, if it's really hot out, they
may not want to have the lanyard stick into their
neck as you're walking around, so just consider that. But
there are some of these really great PinFolio boards from
gopinpro dot com, not sponsored, just really like their products.

(35:47):
They've they've got they've kind of, uh, they're kind of
the go to when it comes to some of this.
So what I'm holding here, if you can see me,
is kind of like a foamy like board that they
have where you can just stick the pin directly into it.
And they've got a bunch of different sizes. They've got
like tiny little two inch sizes. This one I think
is like a five inch size maybe if I remember correctly,

(36:10):
But they've got ones that are this size. They've got
ones that are like full you know, eight x ten size.
They've got all sorts of different products on there. But
these boards are really nice because they can slide into
a park bag really easily. And they even also have
some of these that have like a like a clear
plastic zip lock that'll go over top of it to
protect them from weather things like that. You can also

(36:33):
find some of these that will slide into display bags,
which is the next thing that I wanted to talk about,
because you can find a lot of those where they'll
have like a clear front to it. I have this
little tiny kind of wristlet one which if you can
see what I'm talking about, it's just a little wristlet
that's honestly a little bit even smaller than the pin

(36:55):
board that I was just showing you guys. But this
is nice because this front little panel right here slides
out of that clear plastic, which is really nice. So
I will use this for like my traders whenever I go.
I am not a huge pin person, but I've got
just a handful that I usually try to go to
the parks with typically just to look for things that

(37:17):
my kids will like or look for. I'm very particular
about what I what I collect, and we'll talk about what.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
That that is like.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
But like they've got little wristlets, there are backpacks, there
are cross shoulder you know bags, there are little fanny
pack style, There's all sorts of different bags depending on
what your preference is. I do suggest if you're looking
for a bag that you're going to be like carrying
as your park bag but also will serve as a
pin bag, to have one that has this kind of

(37:49):
like plastic front to it, because you will find and
Disney even has them that they market, like little cross
body bags that don't have that, and it just worries
me of like things falling off. You know, if you've
got that clear plastic front, it's gonna catch it if
it does happen to.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
Come off or fall off.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
Now, Disney does send like or does sell like locking
pin backs in little packages and stuff that you can
get to if you're planning to like more permanently display
things on like a jean jacket or a bag or
a lanyard or whatever kind of deal. They do sell
those as well. But I would suggest having some sort

(38:29):
of a cover just to help protect your pins and
to mostly to keep them from like escaping and falling
falling apart and falling off never to be seen again.
I can't tell you how many pins I've found on
the floor in the parks because they just fall off
of lanyards or fall out of bags or out of pockets.

Speaker 3 (38:45):
Especially since Disney has gone from here. Let me show
you an example to our our viewing audience, and I
will describe it to our listeners. So there are ones
that have are sort of like the classic clasp one
littletter h thank you butterfly clasp and so they are
going to where like you have to kind of push

(39:06):
in and then pull back to release it. Right, So
there's it's like a locking mechanism without being the full
locking right they have gone to for a lot of these.
As I throw my pins all around, is this exactly?
That's exactly right?

Speaker 2 (39:19):
The rubber stick back one.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
And that's good because it's like a tight fit. But
if you have been like kind of pulling it on
and off and whatever where you stick it wrong.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
Like a little bit weird snagging on something right.

Speaker 3 (39:33):
And exactly snaging on something like the butterfly one, like
you cannot pull it off without great force unless you're
like like pushing on the closure, specifically the plasticky one.
The rubber one just falls right off.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
So agreed.

Speaker 3 (39:49):
If you are interested in keeping those pins long term,
you care about them very deeply. Locking pin back is
one hundred percent the way to go. I got a
lot of like five hundred of them on Amazon years
ago for like twenty bucks. I say, yeah, but I'm
in the parks.

Speaker 1 (40:02):
Yeah, they're very inexpensive. If you're in a bind and
you're in a BDent, get them. But yeah, if you
can plan ahead and order those ahead that will save you,
that'll save you up penny or two.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
Yeah, and I.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
Can attest to the fact that they are fantastic because
I have a jean jacket that has pins that haven't
come off of them in almost ten years. So yes,
locking backs are great for literal permanency.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
So yes, yes, absolutely so kind of going back to
the pin bags, do keep in mind that some people
like to keep their pin bags just as display, for like,
look how pretty my collection is, Look how cool it
looks like, or like if they're bounding, like look at
all these pins that I have that match my bound
outfit that I'm doing today. And then they may carry

(40:44):
like something else.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
That has their traders on it.

Speaker 1 (40:46):
So just ask, Like Duck mentioned earlier, You've just got
to ask, like, hey, I see you've got a ton
of pins. I would love to see what you have
available to trade. And they may say, oh, anything you
see here is available to trade, or they may say, oh,
let me grab my lanyard out, or you know those
types of things. So again, you just gotta ask. I
apologize to the people that get social anxiety because I

(41:07):
feel that, however.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
If you want to trade, you just gotta ask.

Speaker 3 (41:13):
And again, people are generally nice about it. I've never
had anybody that.

Speaker 2 (41:18):
Like bit my head off for half at right.

Speaker 3 (41:19):
People are made decline right because they could have it
as like their collection on display or like yeah, maybe
they're just like all traded out for the day and
they have everything that they wanted. I've totally had people
decline and you said, okay, no problem, enjoy the rest
of your park day, right. Like It's like, truly, I know,
there's like some nefarious actors right as there is in
any hobby, and not everybody is nice, but there does

(41:40):
seem to be like a specific core around the type
of people who are drawn to pin trading as an
activity that generally they are on the kinder side and
even if they're not interested in engaging in that very moment,
they will politely decline. So even if it is a
little awkward for you to get into the habit of
asking to pin trade, really it's good social practice for

(42:00):
everyone out there who wigs out at social interaction, like myself,
and which I know, maybe shocking from how much I
love talking on this podcast.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
I am.

Speaker 3 (42:09):
I am an anxious, anxious human, but yeah, no, it's
people are generally pretty kind surrounding accepting or declining pin trading.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
Yeah, and if you're really worried about it, then just
stick to asking cast members. Yeah, yeah, you know, because
this won't decline, right, Yeah. I mean, like, like we mentioned,
the pins that they have on them are likely given
to them by management for trading, or they're working at
a location that has a pin board for trading, So
that's your best bet. I will also say that, yeah,

(42:40):
I am also an anxious person when it comes to
that kind of thing. But it is also a really
great teachable moment for kids to kind of teach them
some of that social interaction because in a day and
age of screens in the internet, you know, it's it's
a great thing to like, Okay, we're going to walk
up here, ask them politely, may I please see your pins?

(43:01):
And then you can look, and then when you're done,
you need to say thank you so much for your time,
you know, and then we can walk away.

Speaker 2 (43:07):
So just those little.

Speaker 1 (43:08):
Things, just my mom moment is it's very helpful because
even my kids, you know, you get excited and they
went to walk away and I was like, well, well
we'll stop say thank you now we can walk away.

Speaker 3 (43:20):
Yeah, no, so especially with how much there there is
constantly going on at the parks, right, Like, it's a
good moment to have kiddos or younger humans that are
with you. In general, just take that moment to slow
down and thank the people who are there making the magic,
and you know, thank people for their kind interactions. So
totally agree, and I think that makes complete sense.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. A couple other ways that you will
find people carrying pins around. You will find people that
have gigantic binders full of pins. They're not super convenient
to carry around in the parks, so you'll find those
a lot at events, or you'll find those a lot
at those kind of designated pin trading locations. So like
that Caught location, people bring their binders in and they

(44:03):
just flop them all out on the on the tables
for people to look through. So it really just depends.
But typically you're not going to see a ton of
those big, kind of cumbersome binders in the parks, but
those are really good for like organizing your sets at
home and kind of seeing what you've got, or you know,
putting things by character or by by collection, those types

(44:23):
of things for binders, and then you can also just
throw them in your bag, put them in a ziplock.
You know, you don't have to have something fancy to
be able to pin trade. Like, there's absolutely no rules
when it comes to that. So whatever you've got that
works is perfectly fine. And you may find people that
that's what they do with their traders, right, so any

(44:45):
pins that they're like, yep, these ones are good to trade,
I don't need to keep them. They'll throw them in
a bag, ziplock them and throw them in their parks
bag to make them super easily accessible. And it is
always smart if you're someone who is collecting and also
trading to kind of those a little bit separate so
that way it's not confusing whenever you go to actually
do trades or look at pinboards and things like that.

(45:08):
It will help your brain remember what you're doing, first
of all, but it also will help anybody who's coming
to look at your collection to trade know like, okay,
these are all available as traders. So however you want
to separate those, if it's a plastic bag, if it's
a little you know, PinFolio board or whatever you want
to do with that, it is good to have those
kind of separate in your stash of pins.

Speaker 3 (45:30):
And it's so funny when you say have, because that's
usually what we'll do, So I'll have you know, will
you just have like a couple on a lanyard to
like indicate that we're interested in turn in. And then
it's very funny when you reach into the park bag
and you're like, I have a couple more and seeing
especially a kiddo's face light up, like I've never seen
so many pins in one place, Like you can just

(45:51):
see like the wiring like malfunction there for a second.
It's it's a lot of fun and also like, yeah,
I don't know if somebody really wants the one that
I have on my lane. You're of course, but like
I also like giving people the variety. So not mandatory
by any means, but like you said, Jackie, good way
to bring a lot of pins in it once without
really having to worry about you know, how am I

(46:14):
gonna display forty pins.

Speaker 2 (46:16):
On a lanyard? You know what I mean? How am
I gonna have all this plastic bag totally sufficient?

Speaker 1 (46:21):
Okay, So once we get our pins into the park
and we figure out where we're gonna trade, let's talk
about some kind of etiquette rules suggestions from mom street
when it comes to pin trading.

Speaker 3 (46:35):
So Disney does list on their website some official rules,
and they are also their common sense rules, and they
feed well into.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
The etiquette conversation.

Speaker 3 (46:43):
So we're gonna go through those and then if as
any sidebars come up, we'll talk through that too. So
the first and rule, of course, as I said up
top earlier, ask.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
Please, please, please, please, just ask.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
Whether it's a cast member, whether it's a guest, whether
it's on a board, before you start reaching your little
fingies out to grab the pin that you want, pretty
please always ask, may I pin trade? Is that pin
available for trade? Some some version.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
Thereof can I see your pins? Can I look at
your pins? Yep?

Speaker 1 (47:20):
And that's one of those things that with your little littles,
you're gonna have to prompt them because especially if you've
got you know, little elementary age, even my kids, you know,
being six and eight, it's like, no, we got to ask.
We can't just go up and go I want this
one and snatch it.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
That's not how that works.

Speaker 1 (47:35):
First of all, body bubbles space, Do not invade someone's space.
Do not reach for their pins, even if they say yes,
they may hand.

Speaker 2 (47:45):
It to you if it is on their person. Yep.
Do not reach and grab.

Speaker 3 (47:49):
With lanyards and sensitive areas. Yeah, like please Like cast
members often carry the little felt things on their head.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
Their like like belt pickles. Yeah yeah, they will.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
Like kind of pull it off and show it to you,
or they may like present it right like, there's going
to be some sort of step that is taken. Do
not body bubble, perfect perfect way to describe it. Do
not invade somebody's personal space. No, and even once you
have decided which one you want, if it is on
somebody's body.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
Please use your words.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
I would love to trade you for that Mickey pin
right there, and they can present it to you. You
can do a switcheroo all as well in the world.

Speaker 3 (48:30):
Congratulations, you've pin traded respectfully and I love that.

Speaker 2 (48:33):
Say er ki.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
Okay, So I know we talked about this earlier and
I just want to reemphasize it again. Please only trade
official Disney pins. There are special cases that Disney outlines for,
like affiliate pins. Right if it's a company that Disney owns,
like ESPN, ABC, something in that family that is also
aoka to trade but it must be an official pin.

(48:58):
Can't trade a scribe knowingly trade a scrapper and which
we'll talk again about scrappers in just a second. I
know we keep saying like teeing it up, like it's
this big topic of conversation. But and also please understand
that it is at the cast members discretion if you
were trading on a board, to decline the trade.

Speaker 2 (49:18):
I mean, it's.

Speaker 3 (49:18):
Also at uh, you know, if you're doing peer to
peer trading. But I'm really talking more about like the
cast member focused trading for this, it is at their
discretion if they sit if they are going to decline it.
Like we said, some parks have very high standards. Some
parks do not. Sometimes cast member will just use their
discretion and be like it's a child. I'm not going
to say no to them over the scrapper pan, right
like they clearly want this appcot pan or this stitch

(49:40):
pin or whatever.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
I'll take it.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
But understand that it is up to them to be
able to say yes or no, even if it's on
the boards.

Speaker 1 (49:48):
Yeah, and keep in mind too that things like Star
Wars pins, Marvel pins, any of those umbrella companies. You'll
find those pins all over the parks, incests and mystery
packs first sale. So a good rule of thumb is
if you're concerned about like, oh, this is a you
know I've seen people talk about like lounge fly pins. Well,
if it's a Disney lounge fly and it's branded Disney,

(50:13):
then you're good to go. So you know, you just
keep an eye out for what's for sale in those
different you know, the different places, and if you see it,
then you know that you're good to.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
Go, exactly.

Speaker 3 (50:23):
And a good rule of thumb, especially for like those
lounge fly pins for our video guests, our video folks,
I have I have a pin that I'm going to
show you, but I'll just describe it for the audio folks.
So I have a it's a Tiana's Place pin. It
is a lounge fly pin that I had gotten in
a mystery box. I purchased it from box launch. But

(50:43):
when you flip it around, the thing that really matters
to pay attention to is here on the bottom. It's
not super clear. There we go, but you have that
copyright symbol and Disney that is like going to be
your best bet of is the something that I can
trade in the park if it has the copyright Disney
on the back, you are generally good to go, right,
because it can be any of those properties. Like we said,

(51:05):
it could be ESPN, it could be a Marvel, it
could be a Star Wars, it could be one of
the Princesses. But it come from Box Launch.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
Right, right.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
So, like this is a C three po pin that
we got, I mean we bought it in a mystery
pack at Disney. But if you look on the backside,
it's really tiny, but it's got not only the Star
Wars logo, but if you look right underneath, it's got
that copyright Disney. So even though it's Star Wars and
it's got the Star Wars name on it, it's still

(51:32):
copyright Disney. And that's what you want to look for
because not all lounge Fly. You know, Disney doesn't own
lounge Fly. Lounge Fly doesn't only work with Disney, and
they do have other pins that they put out that are.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
Not Disney affiliated.

Speaker 1 (51:46):
So you always going to make sure that even if
it is a lounge Fly pin or a Marvel pin
or something like that, you want to make sure that
it has that Disney on it.

Speaker 3 (51:54):
Yeah, that is like an easy surefire way to be like,
do I think this can be tradable. It's got the
copyright Disney, I'm good to go.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (52:03):
So a couple other official Disney official rules for pin trading,
as Disney has put out, please only trade one pin.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
At a time.

Speaker 3 (52:11):
It can get really hectic when you're like, I know,
it's like super exciting, and you're like, I don't want
somebody to get this one pin that I need for
my collection before somebody else can get it. But also
I see a second one that I need, right Like,
I totally understand there's a lot going on. If as
an adult it's over stimulating, I can only imagine how
exciting it is for children, right Like, there's a lot

(52:33):
going on. So I think it is a good opportunity
to remind both the small children in your care and
yourself as an adult, one pin at a time. It
is largely for safety. We don't need anyone getting overly
excited and poking themselves with it or anything like that.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
So please trade one pin at.

Speaker 3 (52:48):
A time now as far as again, like on the
topic of eligibility for trading, right like we said, as
long as it's official Disney. But also please make sure
your pins are in good condition. If you wouldn't want
to receive it, please don't put it on the board.

Speaker 2 (53:04):
You know it is.

Speaker 3 (53:07):
Again just like a general etiquette, general rule of thumb.
If you don't want it in your collection because it
is messed up, it got run over by the tram
in the parking lot, right like, you don't want it,
then do not put it on the board for somebody
else to unknowingly take.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
Yeah, especially you'll find some there are quite a few
pins out in circulation that have like moving parts, things
that slide side to side or up and down. Bet
either that's broken or doesn't function. You know, be a
kind individual, be a kind human, Like Duck said, if
you wouldn't want to receive it, don't offer it for
a trade.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
Right. There is, by the official Disney rules.

Speaker 3 (53:45):
A limit of two pins per cast member slash board
per day. Some days they are super strict.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
About it, some days they are not.

Speaker 3 (53:56):
Again, it's kind of up to the discretion of the
cast member, and they are going to read the situation
and who was participating in that trade to the best
of their ability. You know, if it's something that like
it's happened to me once, right, like they happened to have.
I think it was three pins through those Epcot pins
that I needed and there was nobody else like in line, Like,
I wasn't taking a trading opportunity from somebody, and the
cast member was generous enough to allow me to trade

(54:18):
a third pin from that board for the day.

Speaker 4 (54:20):
Right.

Speaker 3 (54:21):
You know, there's very a lot of understanding, But again
it's up to the cast members discretion for how strictly
they're going to enforce that rule. So Disney does have
the blanket rule of two pins per individual cast member
or per individual board per day.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
Yeah, And I think the thing to remember about that
is it technically is per day, so like, yes, the
boards can change throughout the day and you may see
other pins pop up. Just be respectful of those around you,
be respectful of the cast members, and just keep that
in mind that that is the rule that Disney governs
their pin trading by.

Speaker 2 (54:54):
Right, And it's to give folks an opportunity.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
Right, If you are spending all day hanging out Cava
and the Mexico Pavilion and they have a pin board,
it's very fair for you to be able to just
like snipe all the super cool pins off of that
board when maybe there's a kiddo who's just passing through
to go see, you know, hang out on three cabs
for a little bit, and they only get to pass
through once. Right, So that's why that rule is enforced,
is just to make sure that everybody gets an equal

(55:18):
and fair chance at the cool pins that can pop
up throughout the day. Yeah. Now this one may come
as a shock to people, but you cannot exchange pins
for monetary gain within the pin trading Why they not stuff? Well, see,
it can get ugly real quick. I don't know if

(55:39):
you've just noticed behavior recently, but once money gets involved,
it gets weird. This is technically for the officially sanctioned
like in park trading, they do not forbid secondhand selling. Right,
So like those places that we mentioned, those marketplaces, Disney
Pins for You, Disney Pin's blog, even trusted sellers on

(56:01):
things like eBay, again, be very careful on those platforms.
That is not forbidden. But if you are trading with
a cast member, you can't be like, I'm gonna give
you this pin and you're gonna give me a twenty
dollars Disney gift card, right Like, that is not a
thing that Disney permits, So anything that's like a gift card,
I'm gonna trade you this pin for sunglasses, a voucher

(56:23):
of any kind. I've seen somebody try to bribe their
way into a lightning lane before with pins like I've
seen some unruly behavior. So no, there is nothing to
gain from pin trading except for another pin. That is
the official Disney stance on that now.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
Also, I will just insert this in here because there's
lots of conversation on the internet about resellers, do keep
in mind that if you are someone that is planning
to purchase pins to resell again, Disney does not have
specifics on that. However, they do have specifics on using

(57:03):
your annual pass discount or any other discount to get
a pin and then turn around and sell it for profit.
That is not allowed. Disney will not let you profit
off of their name and off of their merchandise, so
keep that in mind. You know, there's something to be

(57:24):
said for Oh, I collected this collection.

Speaker 2 (57:27):
I never finished it.

Speaker 1 (57:28):
I'm not interested in hanging on to it anymore. Or
I'm gonna go get this limited edition pin, pay for
it with my AP discount, and then mark up the price.
To make money off of it. Big difference between the two.
So just for those listening keep that in mind.

Speaker 3 (57:48):
I'm going to keep my comments about flippers to myself,
hak yep as a saying, and if a great number
of collecting hobbies, I have thoughts and feelings, and I
completely agree there's a large distinction between this is just
an item that I don't want anymore, or I bought
it and it kind of doesn't fit into my collection
and I'm just going to sell it at like, you know,
a reasonable amount.

Speaker 2 (58:08):
I just want my I just want my what I.

Speaker 3 (58:10):
Paid back or what I paid plus five dollars for gas,
or you know, I want to cover a tural with it. Right,
there's a difference between that and I camped here for
forty eight hours and punched Mickey Mouse in the face
to be able to get this pin right, Like, huge
difference between those two situations. And that's my thoughts on that, yes,
which actually brings us pretty good into our next point,

(58:33):
which is it's not an official Disney rule, but please
be a good pin trading citizen, right, except when somebody
declines a cast memberman to climb a trade for whatever reason, right,
maybe they're just like sprinting to go handle their situation
that cannot stop at that very moment and may decline.
Maybe they see that you have a pin that is

(58:54):
not within the confines of what is acceptable for a
trade while on property. Maybe people don't want to part
with their pins. All of that is okay, right, like truly,
just use like common sense, good human interactions when entering
into this like pin trading agreement for lack of a
better term.

Speaker 1 (59:13):
Yeah, if someone says no, that's a full sentence. So
we're said listen to them, you know, if they say
I'm not interested, or you know, if you both ask
to see each other's pins and you find something and
they're like, uh, you don't really have anything I want.
I'm so sorry. You know, Okay, no problem, thanks for
thanks for checking out.

Speaker 2 (59:33):
That's exactly right. Go on your merry way. That's it.

Speaker 3 (59:36):
Ye you say, have a great park day, and then
you just continue on and get yourself.

Speaker 2 (59:39):
A churro, right like that is.

Speaker 1 (59:41):
We just move on and they do not owe you
a trade if that's not how the world works. So
keep that in mind, and you need to prompt your
kids for that too. Your kids need to understand that
there they are likely going to be trading with potentially
with other kids, but likely with grown ups who have
invest did a lot of money into this, especially if

(01:00:02):
they're just starting. That was a conversation I had with
my kids, like, hey, as that looks at their their
collections behind them.

Speaker 3 (01:00:10):
But slowly moving the pins off the table.

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
Who spends a lot of money?

Speaker 3 (01:00:13):
Not me?

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
But that was a conversation I have with my kiddos, like, Hey,
first of all, it's okay to not see something that
you want, even if you're looking at boards that from
the the cast members are looking at Lanyard's like, hey,
can I see your pins? Doesn't mean you're you're locked
into a trade. And the same way that if someone
asks Sissy, yours and you say yes, doesn't mean you're
locked into a trade. And that's a conversation that you

(01:00:35):
you need to have because that is just the way
that the world of pin trading works when it comes
to collectibles. So kind of prompting your kiddos and remembering
yourself that, like, just because we're checking each other's stuff
out doesn't mean that we're we're locked into a trade,
all right, So I think that gives us a good

(01:00:56):
basis on the etiquette and the rules. Again, be a
kind person, be a kind human. But let's talk about
the scrappers, because we've been we've been hinting at it
this whole time. Let's talk about scrapper pins. What that means?

(01:01:16):
What are we looking for? Just help us out, we'll do.

Speaker 4 (01:01:20):
So. The term scrapper came about because the first kind
of illegitimate like scrapper pins as they were, that started
entering the pin trating sphere were literally pins that were
like scrapped from the official factories that were making the pins.
So essentially they didn't pass the quality control and they
were put off to the side to be discarded, melted

(01:01:40):
down into other pins, what have you. But that didn't
happen with these, and they were kind of backdoored out
of the factory and slitsued right. It was mission impossible.
But with me, I just thought it was that dramatic.
But I mean, maybe Tom Cruise a little bit from
the ceiling.

Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
I don't you never know. You weren't there, Jess. That
is true. I was there, and you never know what
Tom Cruise is doing.

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):
So at any at any given moment, that man goes
up to something I just know it.

Speaker 4 (01:02:08):
Yeah. So yeah, so those pins did not get thrown
out of recycle as they were supposed to, and then
they typically end up online on eBay in large lots
like Duck said, where they're selling them for like a
thousand pins for like three dollars and people kind of
unknowingly purchased these pins. Is I think really how it

(01:02:29):
initially started. They just didn't realize what it was, got
a bunch of these pins, started trading them around in
the parks, and then now they are just kind of
in circulation in the parks. It's honestly, if you're going
to go in and trade on cast member boards, lanyards,
what have you, it is like just something to kind
of expect that you might most likely get a fake
pin because they have kind of very widely been circulated

(01:02:53):
and that is a lot of what is in the parks.

Speaker 3 (01:02:55):
Let's be clear, you will end up with a fake, right.
Is a trading endeavor, is what it is. There are
so many out there, they continue to make them. Right,
It's not like it was a select lot and then
we fixed it. Es we'll talk more about it, but
like this just simply is a fact of the collecting hobby.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
It is, yeah, And it's been a thing in pin
collecting for so long, and the people that start into
pin collecting don't realize that that's even a thing until
they're too far into it. So there's it's it's really
hard to kind of get.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
Ahead of the ball on that one, right. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:03:28):
So and then you know from there, some of the
molds to make the pins actually ended up getting stolen
or copied, and then people started producing cheaper, lower quality
pins that were replicas of the exact pins that were
being sold in the parks, or limited edition pins and
things like that.

Speaker 3 (01:03:47):
This happens a lot with the hidden Mickey pass so
that that series, which is exactly what it sounds like, right,
It's like a character. And then somewhere on that little
pin of the character, there's a little mickey somewhere on there.

Speaker 2 (01:03:59):
I'm trying to see if I have one right in
front of me. I don't know if I'm to show
our visual audience per film.

Speaker 4 (01:04:05):
Yes, that's exactly right, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, and the
scrapper at that and it is and we'll talk about more.

Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
But that is the series, visual folks, The little tiny
silver Mickey head on it, yeah, exactly, and so for
our audio only folks, that's exactly right.

Speaker 3 (01:04:20):
Somewhere in the pins design there's just a tiny little
silver or usually the silver or red like somehow some
way to stand out, just a little mickey head right
like it's just a fun, little little cute thing. But
Disney mass produced them and then seemilarly little like lost
control of the factory, and then the molds got stolen.
They get stolen for almost all of these, and they

(01:04:43):
are the most commonly faked series of pins, and they
continue to be made. It's still a series that Disney cells.
They'll like switch up the characters that are available. They
are like also on the cheaper end of Disney pins themselves,
so they just end up all over the place. And
it's just a very easily faked series of pins.

Speaker 4 (01:05:05):
So how do we spot a scrapper pin? How do
I know that my pin is fake? Sometimes it is
really hard to determine if the pin is a scrapper
or if it's just kind of a low quality pin
that somehow made it. For the quality controls, we have
literally purchased pins from the parks that look like they
would have been like pulled them out of a mystery
box and it looks like a fake pin. There are

(01:05:28):
imperfections in the enamel design. There are you know, issues
with the Mickey waffling on the back. The Mickey waffling,
it's like the little Mickey heads that are on the
backs of the pins. That is the most common nowadays
four pins that are being sold in the parks, but
some older pins didn't have that. They didn't introduce that
until a few years ago, so there's still pins at

(01:05:51):
our official that don't have that. A lot of these
scrapper pins do have the copyright Disney on the back,
especially the ones that are made from the molds of
you know that we're kind of stolen from factories, right,
So a lot of them do have aspects that can
seem a little bit legit, but some pretty good indicators
and signs that the pin that you have is a

(01:06:11):
scrapper is if it's made of a thinner, kind of
poorer quality metal then the official pins. So typically the
official Disney pins will be like a super fix, super
like sturdy, you know, metal material.

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
Something else to look.

Speaker 4 (01:06:27):
For is having the unclear writing or Mickey waffle patterns
on the back. I wish there was a good a
good example of this, but or do you have an
example of the mickey waffling?

Speaker 3 (01:06:38):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
Yes, so I do have an example of the mickey waffling.

Speaker 3 (01:06:41):
So again, sorry for our visual folks, But as we
were describing earlier, the mickey waffling is a stamping of
a mickey pattern on the back.

Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
Of the pins.

Speaker 3 (01:06:51):
And here I have one, don't I have one of
the legit you could just open that one.

Speaker 2 (01:06:54):
Oh yeah, the you're good.

Speaker 3 (01:06:57):
So this is one that we're fairly sure is a
scrapper you can it's really hard to see visually, and
for folks who are listening or even like doing video,
it's a good call for you to go look up
photos because there's bajillions of them on the Internet and
they're very clear at pointing out what is and is

(01:07:17):
not good waffling and good edging and good coloring for
these pins. So we're describing them to you here and
if you can see the video, we're gonna show you
as best as we can. But truly like there are
some fantastic resources out there in regards to helping you
identify scrapper pins.

Speaker 4 (01:07:33):
Yeah, so this is a good example of a real pin.
So this is a Halloween pin from a couple of
years ago with stitch or Mochi dressed up as stitch.
On the back, there is the waffling pattern. Everything is
evenly spaced. The writing is all neat, evenly spaced. It
might be tiny, but it is still legible. A lot
of the times, it'll be very hard to read these

(01:07:55):
pins on the back to see the dates, the names.
Things might be spelled wrong, or like the letters might
be very far like spaced out on the backs of
these pins that are fake. So those are just kind
of some telltale things to look for on the backs
of the pins. On the front of the pins, the
enamel most official Disney pins, there are a few exceptions

(01:08:16):
to this, but most of them are made with this
kind of harder enamel, so it has kind of like
a matte finish to it. But then when you have
a scrapper pin, a lot of those are made with
a softer enamel, so sometimes you'll see little like divots
in it or a little like bubbling on the top.
So that's kind of a good way to tell if

(01:08:36):
it has that like shinier finish to it too.

Speaker 2 (01:08:40):
You can kind of see a flogging.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
If you can see the pin, the one that I'm yeah,
the one that I've got is a Mermaid pin.

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
But you can see if I can catch the light,
you can tell how kind of shiny that is on
the front. This one.

Speaker 1 (01:08:54):
Also you can really feel the ridges, and I know
that's something that we'll talk about here, but like, this
one is very much clearly a scrapper.

Speaker 2 (01:09:03):
But again, my daughter was like, Oh, that's one of
aerial sisters. I want that pin.

Speaker 3 (01:09:07):
Cool, kid, go for it, And that's what matters, right,
Like this pin that I was showing as an example
is an epcop pin, and there was just no way
I wasn't gonna have at my collection. Like, I do
not care if it's fake, right, Like, it's not fake
in the sense that it's not a real object for
you to add a collection, right, Like, I completely understand
and respect pin traders who have a hardline stance of

(01:09:29):
I do not want scrappers in my collection. That is
totally cool. That is how you choose to collect, and
that is one hundred percent acceptable. I choose to collect
the designs that I like and as my opinion for
my collection, as long as I'm not purchasing it and
directly supporting the people who have stolen these molds or
who are faking it, Like I'm not directly contributing to

(01:09:50):
that economy. I just picked this off of a pin
board because I liked the design, and it's going to
stay in my collection, right, I'm not gonna put this
back out in my world, So expecting kid or even
an unsuspecting adult who's new to the pin trading world
is gonna end up with this. This stays with me
on my pin board at home, and that's like my
comfort zone for trading.

Speaker 4 (01:10:10):
So sometimes what I'll do if I end up with
a pin that is probably a scrapper but not something
that I want in my collection anymore. If I'm doing
like an online trade with somebody, I'll like throw it
in there as like a little extra and write and
it't like probably fake, but if it's with you know
what you have or your collection or what you were
looking for, So like my gift to you here, you
go yeah, and then you know they know it's not
a real pin, it's not something that they can go

(01:10:32):
back and trade, but it's just something a little extra
thought of you. You know, this reminded me of your collection,
so I thought it, you know, might have a better
home with you.

Speaker 3 (01:10:39):
Yeah. Absolutely, And we used to sell a lot of
stuff on eBay, right like, just like you know, pops
and stuff like that, not flipper stuff. Let me be clear,
we don't do flipping. That's not our vibe here, right,
So it was just a lot of stuff that like
we had a mast over the years, and like truly
when we were moving, like I we just could not
fit everything into a condo that we each individually fit

(01:11:01):
in our parents' whole houses, right like, it was not happening.

Speaker 2 (01:11:04):
So a lot of like as.

Speaker 3 (01:11:05):
We were downsizing the collections, like, we also did that
with pins, Like you know, we would sell like I
don't know, like a BB eight Funko pop for five
dollars on eBay, and I'd throw a scrapper pin in
there too, right because like whatever, Like it's.

Speaker 2 (01:11:19):
A BB eight pin, Like it doesn't matter, you know,
enjoy it.

Speaker 3 (01:11:21):
It's just something extra and it's something that you clearly like. Right,
So in the same vein, Like, I think that's a
really good suggestion for uses for uh scrapper pins.

Speaker 2 (01:11:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:11:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
And also one other suggestion is.

Speaker 3 (01:11:34):
That it goes really great to have them in if
you are have children that are of age to be
trusted with slightly pointing objects.

Speaker 2 (01:11:41):
I mean, but that disclaimer there.

Speaker 3 (01:11:43):
Put them in like goodie bags for birthday parties and
stuff like those are always a big hit. So those
there are places, times and places for you to get
about those pins, just maybe not an official Disney trade
Disney pin trading capacity.

Speaker 4 (01:11:56):
Some people who are crafty kind of use them as
like embellishments on crafts. So yeah, ye, I've seen that.
There's like tutorials online where people use you know, their
scrapper pins for different things. So like there's all kinds
of ways to use them and get them out of
circulation in the parks, but also still get to enjoy
them and appreciate them, you know for having the fun
characters that you enjoy on them if you are you know,

(01:12:17):
kind of much or I think Duck kind of touched
on this before. If a pin is fake or not,
you can always google it. There are definitely, like the
Hidden Mickeys pins that are very commonly faked, so it
is kind of easy to tell from a quick Google search.
If you know there's a high probability of this pin
being faked, people will say what to look out for.
Sometimes there are certain pins that have a very specific
thing to look for, Like there was a collection of

(01:12:39):
limited edition pins. Those pins aren't as widely traded in
the parks, but sometimes in like the Facebook groups or
at events. The Windows of Magic pins, so these were
the Disney princesses on like a stained glass window kind
of design, and they were very popular, very sought after pins.
They are making similar window series even to this day
and they're still very popular. So they were very widely faked.

Speaker 3 (01:13:02):
The Villains ones were the best, that's my money, n
The horn King one went so hard.

Speaker 4 (01:13:06):
Anyway, they have Attractions ones this year and I can't
get my hands on them to save my life because
they're so popular. But the Windows of Magic were, and
the Windows of Evil ms too. They were all very
widely faked, and the way to kind of tell if
they were real was counting the Mickey heads across the
back of the pin, So if there was a certain number,
you knew it was real. If there was any more
or any less, you knew that that was a scrapper
version of the pin. So, like some pins have things

(01:13:28):
like that that are very specific. A Google search will
tell you. There are a lot of you know, people
on YouTube that do you know, in depth videos about
how to spot scrappers and things like that. So just
things to be aware of when you're going on your
trips to the parks or trading at an event. Again,
most people you know at events and stuff known not
to put those pins that they know are scrappers into
their traders. But like we also said, there are some

(01:13:51):
people who are not always the best actors in these situations.
So know what to look for, Know what your kind
of stance is. If you really like a pin enough,
is it were overlooking that it might be fake like Duck's.

Speaker 2 (01:14:02):
Epcot pin here, you know?

Speaker 4 (01:14:04):
Or are you you know, very set on Nope, I
want only you know, authentic Disney pins in my collection.
But it is something to just kind of expect when
you're in the parks nowadays.

Speaker 1 (01:14:15):
Well, and a couple different things with that too. There
are Facebook groups that exist. Whether or not you want
to go down the rabbit hole of asking a Facebook
group if your pin is real or not, that is
your discretion. Some groups are nice the venus others. Yeah,
So just keep that in mind. A really good bet
if you're someone that's starting and you find one of
these in person events is to take some pins there

(01:14:37):
and ask the people there, you know, Like, like we mentioned,
when people go to those events, they're typically really nice
people and they're like if you go into it saying like, hey,
I'm new to this, can you help me look at
these pins and tell me what I have? Like you know,
I got these from a trusted site. I just want
to double check, or can you inform me, or like
I know this as a scrapper, can you help me

(01:14:58):
figure out, like you know, show me what I need
to know about it? You know, those types of things. Again,
you never know. You may run into someone who doesn't
want to take the time to help you. But chances
are good, especially those in person events, that you're going
to be able to find someone that is willing to
help look at pins with you to make sure that
you know.

Speaker 2 (01:15:19):
What to look for and what you what you have
or what you don't have. Yeah, especially like.

Speaker 3 (01:15:24):
You said, those local ones. I mean, it's just the
people who are bothering to put on a local pin
trading event in New Jersey or Canada or.

Speaker 2 (01:15:35):
You know what I mean. I see them.

Speaker 3 (01:15:36):
I saw one in North Dakota. Right, Like, if you
are taking the time to put this on, this is
clearly your passion and generally you're going to find people
who want to help you, right, I mean it's it's
of course, there's always bad apples, but far and away.
If you are bothering to rent out a Roman and
Marriotte in New Jersey in the dead of winter to

(01:15:56):
trade Disney pins, you probably really care about the community.

Speaker 1 (01:16:01):
Yes, also very true. Also, I will just plug very briefly.
You guys know that we are part of our good
friend Kirk at walraskarp his discord. That is a great
community that you can help you know, that can help
teach you about pins. We've got lots of people in
that community, Duck and Chess included, that are on that
discord that can help you. So if you're like not
sure where to go, but you need online help, come

(01:16:23):
to our discord and let us help you. We are
a very inclusive kind of friendly community over there. So
if you need help with that, that is a definitely
a good place to go for help with.

Speaker 2 (01:16:35):
If you want to post photos of pins.

Speaker 1 (01:16:36):
That you got or are curious about, we can help
you out over there.

Speaker 2 (01:16:41):
I just want to see your collection. Sure, sure, your
pin collection with me? We want to see all of
the pictures. Yes, yes, pictures and pin pictures. That's what
I want. With that's and pins.

Speaker 1 (01:16:55):
I feel like you should start like a new like
Instagram page that's just photos of your dog Ruby and
photos of your pin collection.

Speaker 2 (01:17:05):
Literally just say, have the same collection.

Speaker 3 (01:17:09):
That dog would somehow melt them down and make a knife.

Speaker 2 (01:17:12):
God lover, she is crafty. Okay, so I love that.

Speaker 1 (01:17:17):
That's okay, anyway back on track. But yes, ultimately, you
know you have to decide if the pin is worth
it or not. And if you've got kiddos that are trading,
you do need to kind of coach them on that too,
because they may willingly trade for a really cool character,
but you have to also help them understand that, like, hey,
this one is now permanently in our collection. We're not

(01:17:38):
going to trade it back on the on the boards.
We're not going to put it back out there for
someone else to get. We know that it is not
an authentic quote unquote pin, but you really like this
character and that is great, So let's go put it
on your keeper board and that's where it's gonna live forever.
So that is a conversation that you probably need to
coach your kids through because that is something that I

(01:17:59):
had to talk to my kids is about too. It
was like, Hey, this is a really cool pin, but
after we walk away, Okay, this is not an authentic pin.
So this one is one that goes on our keep pile,
and they were like, okay, sure, mom, whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:18:11):
It helps that kiddo's generally trade for characters that they
really want anyway, So yeah, I think that can ease
the conversation of Okay, this is.

Speaker 2 (01:18:21):
Yours forever, child, forever and ever.

Speaker 1 (01:18:27):
Okay, so let's talk about building that collection and what
that looks like and kind of some of our suggestions
and advice for how to build your collection. The first thing,
and you've heard us already kind of allude to this
on today's episode, is.

Speaker 2 (01:18:44):
Rule number one.

Speaker 1 (01:18:45):
Collect what you love, right, So that's what penetrating is
all about at the end of the day. Is collecting
the characters or the themes or the movies, the icons, the attractions,
whatever it is that you love. What I do because
I'm fairly to pin trading and I'm not looking to,
you know, collect entire giant mass amounts of pins because

(01:19:07):
they're expensive and I don't have space for them.

Speaker 2 (01:19:13):
Has Duck and Jess both look at me like, oh right, okay,
try not feel tech, but like probably the correct stance
to be taking.

Speaker 1 (01:19:22):
Yes, because otherwise I'm not allowed. If I were to
just say I'm gonna collect pins, I think my husband
would would not be happy about that. So what I
do is I focus on like specific characters or specific
niche or a movie or whatever. So like for me

(01:19:43):
is Stitch because Stitch is one of my all time
favorite characters. And then like Winnie the Pooh is one
of my like secondary ones that I will look for.
I do also look for Duffy and Friends because I
love Duffy and Friends peep the Shelley May ears that
I'm wearing in today's episode, So those are kind of
my lane that I stay in. However, I will trade

(01:20:05):
for fun friends, like this is my Chewby pin that
I traded for. It was my very first pin trade
that I made, and Chewbe is just a character that
I love, And this is the only pin that Chewby.

Speaker 2 (01:20:18):
Exists on as of right now.

Speaker 1 (01:20:20):
For those of you who don't know, Chewbe is the
Little Orange Bird at the end of the Mickey and
Minnie's Runaway Railway attraction at Hollywood Studios and over in
Toontown at Disneyland, and I just think he's super fun
and he's a super original character to the parks, which
I think is fun. So that was one that I
was like, m yes, this one's coming home with me.
But generally speaking, I try to keep it niche just

(01:20:41):
so I don't end up with an overwhelming amount of
pins for what my personal preference is. Now that being said,
you are welcome to collect whatever you love. So if
what you love is all things Disney or all things
more all things picks.

Speaker 2 (01:21:01):
Are have at it. My friend.

Speaker 3 (01:21:04):
Yep in this same vein as that, And this is
truly how we started. We were making jokes about how
large our collection is. But you also have to understand
we've been collecting for like a decade now, Like we've
been collecting for actually probably over a decade.

Speaker 2 (01:21:22):
For years.

Speaker 3 (01:21:22):
I mean, our love of Disney pins predates to when
we have finally had enough adult money to go start
traveling to the parks, right Like that was like a
piece of the Disney parks that we could have. I
have always collected them. My aunt actually started a small
collection for me as a child because if you remember
when you would buy those like special VHS tapes from
the Disney store, right like when they were out of

(01:21:43):
the Disney vault, you would get lithographic prints and often
they would also come with a pin. So what my
aunt would do is she would buy for me and
my sister, she would buy the prince and then she
would buy two pins. Right, so we each got the
set of prints and we got the a pin. So
I have been collecting Disney pins quite literally since I

(01:22:04):
was a child, Like it actually predates before like Disney
pin trading being what Disney pin trading was or is
very fine. Yeah, I mean it's really special, right, Like
my ann has since passed on, and you know it's
just like a really nice memory. It was something that
was really important to us. You know, we were always
a big Disney family. So like her going out of
her way to get those items, Like, it's just really

(01:22:25):
nice to have those things in my collection to like
remind me of her, especially since like some of the
lithographs have like gotten destroyed over the years or I mean, right,
you know, like Basement's flood like things happen, unfortunately, But
pins being what they are, they're like fairly undestructible unless
you really really try, you know, so like it's it's
just like a nice memory. So we have been collecting

(01:22:46):
Disney pins forever, but we started somewhere too write. So
it is our best advice to start small and to
start and to ease your way into it.

Speaker 2 (01:22:57):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:22:57):
It could be very exciting, but it can be very overwhelming.
The best place, especially if you know that you want
to trade, right like that is your main thing is
to get into the trading aspect of it. What we
always recommend is start with a couple of mystery packs. Right.
You can get them in the parks fairly cheaply and
even like it hot topic right, like of course, prices
for everything I've gone up and it is more expensive

(01:23:20):
now than it has ever been, I mean shockingly so,
but still like you can usually usually those mystery packs
have like between two and three pins if you're doing
like the hot topic or box lunch one, and then
sometimes up to like five pins in a pack if
you're doing the ones on Disney property.

Speaker 2 (01:23:37):
Right, So those are a great place to start.

Speaker 3 (01:23:40):
Pick a theme that you like, so that way, if
you end up with something for your collection, you're like,
oh my god, that's great. Like the Disney Princess ones
are always a good one for you to get because
you probably statistically like at least one Disney Princess that
they'll have in that pack, and if you like it,
you get to keep it, and it's not a horrible disappointment.
But if you don't like it, then you have something
to begin your trading journey. So that is like our

(01:24:03):
general recommended place to start as you are building your
trading collection.

Speaker 2 (01:24:08):
Yeah, that's something we did with our kids.

Speaker 1 (01:24:10):
We did the little and I should have looked up
the official name, but it's like the little Plushy characters
where they took a lot of the little sidekicks and
they made them into little plushy so like in the
one that we got, and we ended up keeping all
of the ones that we got in that mystery set
because the kids were like, those are so cute, and
it was like, we can't, we couldn't help it, but
like we so we got five in that little set

(01:24:33):
and it was Yeah, it was and it's super fun
for kids too to be able to open them and
then like then they get to decide like, ooh, these
are the ones that I got, Like do I want
to keep them? Do I not want to keep them?
So like we got Pumba, we got Pascal, we got Sebastian,
we got Scrump, and then the I can get him
off of the board. The last one that we got

(01:24:54):
was a Boo, which just like they're so stinking cute
and it was fun because it was a lot of
different characters. We knew that in our one pack that
we picked out, we weren't gonna get duplicates, which is
a very big part of the trading is that people
will open these mystery packs and get duplicates and then
have to trade them away to try to find the
ones that they want, and then it's a whole thing

(01:25:16):
like we talked about before, which you know, Duck and Jess,
I'm sure don't know anything about.

Speaker 2 (01:25:21):
What that's like.

Speaker 3 (01:25:22):
Not once have mystery stocks after mystery box, at a
mystery box trying to get the one that I wanted.
That's never been an experience I have at ever. I
don't have a borderlock gambling problem. That's not why I
opened Pokemon packs on the internet.

Speaker 2 (01:25:40):
Yeah, so there.

Speaker 1 (01:25:42):
The mystery packs are super fun, especially if you find
a set where you're like, I'm happy with any of these,
but also they can be fun if you're like hunting
for a certain one that you want to you know,
the thrill of the chase a little bit too with it.

Speaker 3 (01:25:54):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and so sort of in that same vein, right,
like you buying the mystery boxes are a way for
you to start your trading collection if you are interested
in growing your collection collection, like your personal collection that
you want to keep with you. Frankly, purchasing the specific
pins directly is usually a good way to kind of

(01:26:14):
get that started, right because then you can see like, oh,
this is a character that I do enjoy collecting, or
this is a character that maybe I don't enjoy collecting. Right,
So if you enjoy collecting them, then you can start
hunting them out as you go into the parks or
events to pin trade. And if it turns out that
like a, this isn't really a character that's for me,
like I don't really like the designs that they have
for the pins that are coming out, like, you can

(01:26:35):
then just add them to the trading pile, right, And
something that's also important to know if you are interested
in purchasing pins directly. Pins release quite literally weekly at
Disney it is Tuesday mornings. So if you see a
line in like Adventureland out out to all the way
to the front gate, all the way back to Main Street,

(01:26:56):
it's almost certainly a pin drop, right, Like, people are
fanatical about pins. And again I'm I'm not gonna touch
on flippers as not a conversation we're having here, not
in public anyway, My thoughts are fairly well established. But yeah,
so I mean there's always there is lots and they
also will release online on Tuesday mornings usually, so if

(01:27:17):
that's something that you're interested in. Sometimes they are limited
edition and they are only available in the parks, but
sometimes they are just released online to the public if
they're in an open edition situation. So I do recommend
that if you are looking to start building your personal collection,
buying directly is a good way to do it. But
if you're interested in the trading aspect of it, then
a mystery box is usually the way to go. So

(01:27:38):
that way you have some trade fodder.

Speaker 1 (01:27:41):
Yeah, and you'll see that those prices will vary too,
so keep an eye on that. If you're someone that's
trying to do it more of an inexpensive route if
you can. I mean, pins are expensive regardless. Some of
those packs, like those mystery packs that have three or
five in them, tend to be a little bit more
cost effective per pin. But some of those limited edition pins,
some of the big ones that they've had recently, where

(01:28:02):
the pins are physically big, go upwards of even at
at market price, not at resale price, are one hundred
dollars one hundred and twenty five dollars. So it can
be very expensive depending on what it is that you're
looking for. So you've really got to keep in mind
your budget and what you're looking for and the purpose
of it. Right, if you're just looking for pins to

(01:28:22):
purchase to trade, like Dock mentioned earlier, you don't want
to go for those big, big, big pins now if
you're looking to add them to your collection to keep
different story.

Speaker 2 (01:28:32):
So, now that we've talked.

Speaker 3 (01:28:33):
About your trading and your collecting, what do you actually
do once you physically transport the pins home and you've
decided which ones are joining your collection? Right, Like, what
do you actually do with them?

Speaker 2 (01:28:46):
You stick them in a box?

Speaker 1 (01:28:47):
No, just kidding, get awake forever to never enjoy them
and never look at them.

Speaker 3 (01:28:52):
Yeah, how dare you have those pins and want to
enjoy them?

Speaker 2 (01:28:56):
That is foolish.

Speaker 3 (01:28:57):
You are there for one reason and one reason, oh,
and that is to collect every Epcot pin ever made.

Speaker 1 (01:29:03):
No, so I feel like that's easy, speaking from a
deep place inside of duck.

Speaker 2 (01:29:09):
Yeah, how dare you? Me and my little faceless Epcot mickey?
How dare you? But no?

Speaker 3 (01:29:18):
So, the the most common way to display them at
home is some form.

Speaker 2 (01:29:22):
Or fashion of corkboard, right, like the one.

Speaker 3 (01:29:25):
The way that we display them generally is we bought them.

Speaker 2 (01:29:29):
We bought them on like Amazon. They were like twenty
bucks for a pack of three. They're like these little.

Speaker 3 (01:29:33):
Hexagons, and we just stuck them to the wall with
command tape and then you just put your pins in
there and you can organize them how you want, right,
Like I I routinely reorganize them. So sometimes so and
and it just comes with like when you add more
to the collection. Right, So, Like I had a board
that was all stitch, and then I had enough stitch

(01:29:53):
to fill four boards. So then what I started doing
was instead of doing it by character, I then star
a kind of doing it by like theme, right, So,
like I had a bunch of stitch like in the
Sand or if it was Stitch with leel or whatever
it was, right, Like I also collect like movie opening
day pins, right, so I have a whole bunch of those.

(01:30:13):
So then I have a Stitch Leland Stitch opening Day
pin and that got put with like my Narnia Opening
Day pins, right. So, Like, however you want to display
them and you want to organize them is very personal
and like it's totally fine to change it over time.
And in fact, that's one of the ways that like
I think we enjoy our pins most is like when
we expand the collection and we're.

Speaker 2 (01:30:32):
Like, actually, this might be a fun new way.

Speaker 3 (01:30:34):
To organize them, right, Like it's a very low stakes
thing to do in your daily life, you know what
I mean, Like there is nothing less low stakes than
reorganizing a pin board. But like you know, when you're
going through it, it makes you feel kind of good
to have.

Speaker 2 (01:30:48):
A new way to display like this thing that brings
you happiness.

Speaker 1 (01:30:51):
Right, So, have a little control over the environment that
you're in.

Speaker 3 (01:30:55):
Exactly, we fell this controlling the things that I can
when things feel out of control.

Speaker 2 (01:31:01):
Amen, So yeah, so so you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (01:31:04):
So, like that is how we will display it at home.
It's generally just like a corkboard. We have the small ones.
They sell huge ones. People will sell on Etsy like
shaped ones. I see people do that all the time.

Speaker 2 (01:31:15):
So, like there was.

Speaker 3 (01:31:16):
Somebody that I that I knew that had like a
very extensive Goofy collection and had like a four foot
tall Goofy pin board made and it was like it
was like a Goofy shape, right, you know what I mean,
It was like his silhouette. So like there is aeenty
and ten ways.

Speaker 2 (01:31:33):
For you to choose to display it at home.

Speaker 3 (01:31:35):
Pin Boards are the most logical, right, like we have
them up in the office or or you know, like
when we lived at our parents' houses, like we had
them in the bedroom, you know, our bedrooms or whatever
because that was our space. But you know, however you
want to have that set.

Speaker 2 (01:31:48):
Up, that's the easiest way. There's also like banners for
you to display, right, Like people on Etsy will make
themed banners.

Speaker 3 (01:31:57):
That's a super common thing. There's case is I actually
bought for myself for like the special pins that I
have that I like want to make sure that I
keep separate. Like it's almost like a PinFolio situation. It's
like a case that has like a bunch of fabric
sheets in it for lack of a better term, that
has zip opens in the middle, so I can store

(01:32:19):
like the backing cards for them, but then I can
still have them on some form of display, right, Like
it's not like I have them out on the coffee table,
but like if I need to bring them out to
look for something or whatever it is, or like I'm
reorganizing and I have decided one gets upgraded to the
special folio, like.

Speaker 2 (01:32:33):
You know, I mean, one's worthy.

Speaker 3 (01:32:35):
Of being migrated. So there's like one hundred and ten
ways that you can do it, corkboards being the most common,
and then some people have like little photo albums. I
actually think this is a very cute idea. If I
may make a suggestion to folks out there, if there's
a we try to get like a pin, a special
pin per trip, you know, whether it's for food and
wine or uh, you know, something like that, and people

(01:32:58):
will put like in a photo album a photo of
the trip and then stick the pin with.

Speaker 2 (01:33:03):
The photo of that trip.

Speaker 3 (01:33:04):
Cute, and I think that's something that we're gonna end
up doing, and I think it's just like a very
sweet idea and it helps keep things organized and helps
to you know, remember that remember that particular trip and
why that pin was special.

Speaker 2 (01:33:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:33:17):
Also, Wisney themselves have started making a lot of like
different pin boards and different ways to like display your pins.
I've seen pinboards and like Hot Topic and box Lunch
that are like stitch shaped or mickey or whatever. Right, So,
as pin trading and pins themselves have gotten more popular,
like other places are making like different ways to display
them as well, so you can check out places look

(01:33:38):
that too.

Speaker 1 (01:33:39):
Yeah, And something that we've done is actually do some
like shadow boxes that we've put on the wall, and
we will combine things like our like celebrating buttons that
we get in the parks with like pins and things
like that. So that's another option too. A lot of
those will have it's not necessarily a corkboard backing, but
it's like a I don't even know what you call it.
It's like a cardboard with some like felty fabric on

(01:34:01):
it kind of that they have that you know, you
can push the pins through, but you just yeah, you
got to make sure you give yourself enough space to
have the back or to push them through whatever it
is that you're going to be utilizing. And you do
have to be careful of that with some of the
Amazon corkboards too, because we have we have a similar
set that we've bought, like just sets of those, you know,

(01:34:23):
five like hexagon little corkboards. Well some of them, if
you push the pin through too far, it'll come out
through the other end. So just fair warning make sure
that whatever you're using heads up.

Speaker 3 (01:34:34):
To renters, you might not get your deposit paack right,
So just just keep that in mind.

Speaker 1 (01:34:40):
But yeah, definitely a lot of really fun ways to
uh to display those.

Speaker 2 (01:34:44):
If that's what you choose to do.

Speaker 1 (01:34:45):
And I think ultimately you just have to decide is
your collection do you want it to be on display
so that it can be viewed somewhere in your house.
Do you want to keep it in more of like
a binder that you can flip through. You know, there's
lots of different ways that you can do collections with that,
So you just really have to decide what it is
that you how it is that you want to have
that stored at your your disposal. So you can look

(01:35:09):
through it as you choose cool, all right, I think
in a nutshell sort of that's pintrating. Hopefully we gave
you some good ideas, some information. You know, we didn't
go into types of pins and what kinds of mystery
packs are out there and all that kind of stuff,
because here's the deal with that, it changes so frequently

(01:35:32):
and they cycle through so often what pins they have available.
So it's really hard for us to say, well, they
usually always have these kinds of pins, because it's you
just never know what you're gonna find, so really truly
going to the parks and just looking around and looking
through what the different stores have in different shops will
have different pins, and you know, we didn't get into

(01:35:53):
all of that because it's just too much to speculate,
and two weeks from now it could be all different.

Speaker 2 (01:36:00):
What we're giving you now.

Speaker 1 (01:36:01):
So we tried our best to give you the basics,
make sure you know what you're getting into when it
comes to penetrating, and hopefully give you something to use
going forward to help you enjoy your.

Speaker 2 (01:36:12):
Pin experience at the Disney Parks.

Speaker 1 (01:36:16):
That being said, let's briefly talk about before we wrap
up what we are headed to next so our next
episode here on mom Street will be another Hub episode.
We will be back with our good friend Stevie for
our next episode. Not sure on the topic of that.
You know, we're all kind of in this realm of
like spooky season has started and we're almost to the holidays,

(01:36:38):
and next year feels like it's creeping up on us.
So we're trying to figure out what we're doing over
here at Mont Street. But Stevie will be with us
for our next episode. And speaking of what in the
world we're doing here at mom Street, we do have
a new offering that we are kind of just in
the beginning stages of and that is something that we

(01:36:58):
felt would be better official to our community, and that
is a Patreon account. So if you guys are familiar
with Patreon, it's kind of another one of those websites
where it's kind of like a little clubhouse for your
community and people that you want to connect with. So
the goal is eventually to have that Patreon be replace
what are our current subscribers on our TikTok account. TikTok

(01:37:22):
has made some changes recently with their subscription policy, and we're.

Speaker 2 (01:37:26):
Not super thrilled about it. If we're being completely candid, candid,
thank you. That word was hard.

Speaker 1 (01:37:32):
Sorry, if we're being completely candid. So we are going
to be shifting to more of a Patreon style. We
are in the very infant stages of our Patreon account,
but you can find that link in our show description
if you want to check it out. The main thing
that we're going to have over there currently is the
unedited versions of.

Speaker 2 (01:37:53):
Our podcast episodes are going to live over there.

Speaker 1 (01:37:56):
So we've got some friends that want the chaos that
ensues what we do our live recordings, so some of that, unfortunately,
for time and content, has to get edited out of
our podcast episodes. But if you are someone that wants
all of the in betweens and the chaoses and Duck

(01:38:18):
having to answer the phone when their sister.

Speaker 5 (01:38:20):
Calls and whatever, opanning happy and you know nothing, Yeah,
So currently over there already is the extended version of
our one hundredth anniversary that we just recorded last episode,
so that already exists over there, So if you want
the chaos and the fun and the extended trivia really

(01:38:44):
is the primary thing from that episode.

Speaker 1 (01:38:46):
Unfortunately, we did a ton of trivia with our good
friend Kate aka the Disney Sister, and we were so
happy she was back and doing trivia with us. But
for time's sake, I had to cut some of that
out when I edited because it was a lot. While
we enjoy Live person, wasn't going to be quite as
fun for our listeners to hear on you know, the
re listen. But that does exist on our Patreon now,

(01:39:10):
so you can find that at patreon dot com slash
mom Street USA, so very easy to find over there.
Everything is free content over there for now until we
kind of figure out what we want to do with that,
So please join us over there if you want some
of that content and eventually some exclusive content. We'll live
over there and we'll keep you guys posted once we

(01:39:32):
kind of wrap our brains around what that's going to
look like. But we would love to have you guys
join us over there. So I think that is the
end of our chat for today. Duck and just you
guys have any final thoughts about pin trading or.

Speaker 2 (01:39:46):
Anything that we talked about today.

Speaker 3 (01:39:49):
I don't think there's anything I'm pin trading that we miss. Noah,
I think I hope this was helpful because I know
pin trading can be daunting for a lot of people,
right Like, it seems like it's such like a well
established activity. People feel intimidated participating, people are not sure
how other people are gonna react, or like even the

(01:40:09):
etiquette of asking like how to trade? Right like, So
I hope that this kind of demystified that a little
bit for folks. I hope folks feel more comfortable entering
the hobby. And like, if you have any questions about
pin trading that we're not covered here, ask us in
the discord. You can message any of us either on
the mom Street account or directly on our account here
Beanie Duck, Like that is all totally fine. We are

(01:40:32):
very happy to answer any questions that we can, and
if we do not know the answers, we can probably
point you to somebody who is even more of a
pin based expert than we are. So I hope that
demystified things a little bit.

Speaker 4 (01:40:43):
So most importantly, just have fun with it, right It's
supposed to be fun. You're collecting things that you love,
that represent a movie you love or a character you love,
right So, just like making sure you're having fun is
I think like the most important priority.

Speaker 1 (01:40:55):
Agreed, I love that so fun. Well, thank you guys
all so much for joining us for this episode of
Mom Street USA. As always, like we just mentioned, if
you need help with pin trading or anything else, you
can always reach us Momstreet USA at gmail dot com
or on several of our social media platforms, or on
our new Patreon account that we just talked about, or
on the Discord channel. So lots of ways that you

(01:41:16):
can reach us and we will be able to get
back to you over there. But thank you so much
for joining us for this uh pin trading one oh one,
and we look forward to seeing you on the next
episode of Mom Street USA.

Speaker 2 (01:41:28):
Bye everyone, Bye,

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