WDW 2011 – Pin Trading in Disney

This was the first time we were doing pin trading – and let me tell you, I can see why there are gatherings for this! It was REALLY fun and addicting. My mom got a large grab bag batch of pins on ebay from a reputable seller, and after going through and figuring out which of the random selection we felt we would want to keep, the rest were divvied as “traders”.

Now I had done my research on the whole process – and one thing I’d heard was that the backs were notorious for coming off and pins getting lost. I was determined this would not happen (heck I’ve nearly lost pins that have the tie tack style clasp, let alone just a rubber push on back) and had researched and bought special pin backs WELL before leaving.

I got them from ebay – sold by disneypatriot. I will keep tons of these on hand from now on! They are amazing and work just as advertised. A must have for any serious pin collector who also would like to wear them.

Back to the trading:

We would stop at every CM (cast member or employee) in Disney and check out what they had. Most were excellent about seeing you with a full lanyard and making sure their pins were visible as soon as you got close.

By the end of the trip we had traded off ALL of our stock, and came home with a GREAT collection of keepers. I’m slowly unpacking them all (too many to wear the whole time!) and getting them listed on PinPics. They are a great fan-run community-based catalog of all of Disney pins.

In my (incomplete) list below, I have a few special ones. One is the first Tigger – he was a gift from Mom. The next is the pencil – that was earned while at AAA by taking Disney’s Travel Agent exam. Then the birthday spinner – that was a present from mom and dad for my birthday (of course) while on this trip.

The rest, we just thought were cool. There’s a mix of mine and Chris’ below. The puffles for instance – black is his and purple is mine. We didn’t know what they were (from Club Penguin) or anything, just liked them. I looked it up after getting home and found:

Black Puffle – They are known for their reluctancy and shadowiness. They rarely smile, but they will smile when pleased.
Purple Puffle – They are known to dance and be picky eaters.

HAH! I think that’s perfect.

For my current pin collection – my profile page on PinPics can be found HERE.