Pin Celebrations Part 2

Pin Celebrations Part 2
By Guest Blogger Carol Cruise
In my first blog, I told you all about the annual Pin Celebrations that are in Walt Disney World each fall. Now I will share some tips with you.

Tips for First Timers:

Disney has a wonderful pin site, I suggest becoming familiar with it and if you are planning a trip to WDW checking it out for the new releases.

http://eventservices.disney.go.com/pintrading/index

Collect pins that you like – I like to collect series or special event pins, also passholder pins. Also Pluto, Nightmare Before Christmas and Haunted Mansion pins.

Don’t by shy about asking a CM if you can see their lanyard, the CM’s don’t have to wear a lanyard, they wear it because they like to trade.

Don’t hesitate to ask a CM about a specific pin on their lanyard, most will be able to give you some info about it.

If you see pins on sale at a Disney store or Outlet, stock up on traders.

If you shop eBay for pins and it looks too good to be true, it probably is. You can only trade Disney © pins and there are scrappers out there.

If you are going to an event for the first time wear comfortable shoes (lol) you spend a lot of time standing in lines, the lines for the boards make the busiest day at Soarin’ look good.

When you are at a trading board, with a time limit, start scanning the board up and down going from left to right, if you see a pin you think you might like, put your finger on it, keep scanning, if you see another pin put a finger on it. That way when they say times up, you know where they are, otherwise you won’t find them again.

When you wear pins on your lanyard and you do not want to lose them, take one of the black plastic backing cards that the pins come on, cut it into little squares about 1/2″ x 1/2″, stick your pin through the lanyard, then through the little black square then put the pin back on. The pin will not fall off, this is a whole lot cheaper than buying the locking pin backs.

When trading expect to trade even, by that I mean LE 1000 pin for a LE 1000 pin, or Hidden Mickey for Hidden Mickey. The lower the edition size the more valuable the pin.

If you are trading outside a Pin Trading Station and a trader says “if you go and buy me this pin I will trade you the one you want” – that’s not right 🙁

Like any collection, you need to be able to enjoy it so determine how to best display your collection. I have way too many pins to hang on a wall so I keep them in binders, labelled and categorized so I can sit and go through them easily. Lots of people display their pins in shadow boxes.

The best advise I can give is to have fun with it!

Pin Trading Etiquette:

http://eventservices.disney.go.com/files/Etiquette122004.pdf