Tip Tuesday: "Special" pins

Welcome to another Tip Tuesday!
(Sadly, yet another on a Wednesday)

I've talked before about pin trading at Walt Disney World both for serious pin collectors and family-fun pin trading.

This week, I went to my #1 source when it comes to pins -- my wonderful wife, the DisneyMommy, who is a massive pin collector.

It's her style of pin collecting I find so wonderful and it is this concept I want to share with you. She collects pins that have special value. I'm not talking about limited release pins or pins for special events. I'm talking about pins that have special value to her.

For instance, the photo above is a page from her pin book with different resort pins. She collects pins from those resorts we have stayed at. No resort stay -- no pin. That's what make these pins special.

Another page has nothing but cutie pins. This is a thing between my wife and my daughter. They collect different pins featuring Disney characters in the cutie style. These pins aren't particularly valuable to traditional collectors, but to her, each pin has a special meaning because they are completing the collection together.

Another tip when it comes to special pins deals with special events. Like the resort pins, we try to collect pins from different special events (Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party, Epcot Flower & Garden festival, Osborne Spectacle of Lights, etc.). Again, the pins are a memento of the event itself. Where is the memory in collecting pins from special events you haven't actually attended?

So when you're thinking about collecting Disney pins, think about which pins are special to you.

It's all about remembering the magic.


Special thanks to the Box people and the DisneyMommy for this idea.

Pin center at MK is moved from Uptown Jewelers

The official Disney pin blog recently announced that one of the main pin centers at the Magic Kingdom will no longer be at the Uptown Jewelers. The pin center has been moved to the Magic Kingdom tip board area at the end of Main Street U.S.A. in between the hub and Casey's Corner.

Based on some of the pictures on the blog, it looks as if this new location will be more like a kiosk than a store. I have a feeling this means the new main pin center now will be at the Frontierland Trading Post. If you're looking for some of the more limited pins, Frontierland sounds like it's your best bet now.

Tip Tuesday: Pin Traders

Welcome to another Tip Tuesday!

As I continue my series about Downtown Disney, I thought I'd share a quick tip about pins and pin trading at Downtown Disney. This will be very different from my previous Tip Tuesday post about pin trading the family fun way (meaning trading with cast members).

This is for serious pin collectors. You have been warned.

Located across from Once Upon a Toy and next to Goofy's Candy Co. is the Pin Traders shop. If you're looking for pins at Downtown Disney, this is the place to do it. The shop is similar to a huge gazebo with pins arranged completely around the circular center and walls. Tons of standard and limited edition pins can be found here as well as some exclusive pins.

A little clarification about pins here, I think, is warranted.

The pins you can purchase online at DisneyShopping.com represent there merest fraction of the total number of pins available at Walt Disney World (and Disneyland). There are so many pins available that I would be amazed if someone actually has them all (though I'm sure serious collectors are trying pretty hard to do so).

If you find a pin you've been searching for or that you like, you may want to grab it, as pins do sell out and are retired.

Now, there's another way to acquire pins that doesn't involve money, but it does require some bartering material -- pin trading. Serious pin trading.

Disney provides several tables where pin collectors can display their collections and make trades. This is where the warning for novice collectors comes in -- if you're not a serious collector, you can easily be intimidated by these pro collectors. I'm not saying don't trade, just be sure you know what you're doing. I've tried a few times to trade and I kept coming away with the feeling I was being swindled. Maybe it's just me.

Anyway -- for you serious pin collectors out there, the Pin Trading shop is a fun way to share and enjoy pin trading. So grab that huge pin collection and head out to the Pin Trading shop - you never know what you might find.

Disney announces 2010 hidden Mickey pin collections

What better way to start off 2010 than with a little announcement about hidden Mickey pins?

At the stroke of midnight, Disney released the 2010 hidden Mickey pins for Walt Disney World and Disneyland.

Check them out for yourself (a few of the WDW hidden Mickey pins are pictured above):

WDW: http://eventservices.disney.go.com/files/WDWHiddenMickey2010.pdf
Disneyland: http://eventservices.disney.go.com/files/DLRHiddenMickey2010.pdf

Disney said on their official pin blog that these pins will start appearing on castmember lanyards in the coming weeks.

So all you Disney pinheads out there have some new collections to start searching for!!!

Disney pin blog releases sneak preview of new Hall of Presidents pin

The What's HapPINing? pin blog released a sneak preview of one of the new pins celebrating the re-opening of the Hall of Presidents including President Obama. This pin looks very nice and I hope I can find a way to get this pin later this summer. There are several great looking pins coming up in the next few months. You can see them all at Disneypins.com.

Tip Tuesday: Pin trading -- the family fun way

Walk into a few Disney Stores or shops in a Disney Park and you will quickly notice they all have something in common (besides being owned by Disney), they all have pins. In the case of some shops in the parks, there are hundreds, if not, thousands lining the walls. What do you do with all these pins? Well many collect them. There are standard pins, special edition pins, limited edition pins, limited special release only for a certain event and to a certain group pins, it goes on and on. Some pins can become quite rare and VERY valuable to serious collectors.

Then there's the fun part of pins: Pin Trading.

Now in my opinion, there are two kinds of pin trading, serious trading and family fun trading.

Serious pin trading is akin to trading baseball cards -- two collectors looking to find that super rare pin or score a deal. It's a lot like buying a car, there's haggling, multi-pin offers and all that mess. Personally, I don't like to trade with a serious collector. I always get the feeling they're trying to rip me off, kind of like me trading away a Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle for some obscure card. I don't pay attention to the values of pins, so I really don't know what's a good deal and what's not.

Many of these pins were acquired by pin trading with cast members.

I much prefer the family fun trading. How does this work, you ask? Family fun trading takes place with Disney cast members only. Nearly every cast member walks around with a lanyard full of pins. You can approach any cast member and offer to trade any pin of yours with one of theirs. It's as simple as that. This also is a great chance to talk with some of the cast members - they are wonderful people who work hard to make your time at Disney as magical as it can be.

My kids love this kind of pin trading. They especially like it because my wife and I collect pins and our kids get a real kick out of showing us new pins they've traded for. This makes our pin collection priceless, not because the pins have some incredible value of their own, but because each pin has a meaning and a memory associated with it. Pin trading is another great way for families to enjoy Disney.

So what's the tip in all this? In order to trade with a cast member, you have to have pins, or "pin fodder," as I call it. You could go to a shop and purchase a few pins (at anywhere from about $6 to $15 each) OR try this little trick I'm trying out next week.

I went onto Ebay and searched for "Disney pin lot." There are some folks out there who have access to TONS of pins and they sell them in lots. They are usually basic mass-produced pins. The trick is to find a group of pins for less than $2 a pin. I won a bid for 40 pins for less than $70. Of those, we decided to keep about five or six. The rest are on lanyards and ready for trading. We did get a few duplicates, which is no big deal since I'm trading them away.

Like anything with Ebay, you have to be careful what you bid on. You want authentic Disney pins that come from cast members. No off-quality pins (like sedesmas or European pins).

If you do some careful shopping ahead of your trip, you should be able to get a good stock of "pin fodder" at a far less cost than what you would pay in a Disney Store or in a park shop.

Happy pin trading everyone!

Oh, and here's a Disney news release about pin trading.

P.S.: There won't be a Tip Tuesday next week as I will be at WDW. I hope to bring material for LOTS of posts, so stay tuned!!!

Calling all Disney pinheads!

Ok, time to give you a bit more about myself and my wife. In a nutshell, we're Disney pinheads. We love collecting Disney pins. We have a VERY hard time controlling ourselves when we're at WDW. If we had our way, we'd buy every pin in sight!

With this in mind, my wife was browing the official Disney pin trading Web site, when she came across two pin events that caught her eye.

The first is the Museum of Pin-Tiquities event in the summer of 2009 at Epcot. According to the Web site, the event is "presented in conjunction with the Epcot® Committee For Celebrating Disney Pins, The Department of Tradeology and Fellowship of Happy Traders, this event will feature unique Disney pins created for the Museum's opening, Disney pin trading activities, a silent and live auction of artifacts direct from the Museum's vault and much more."

The second is the Haunted Mansion Opin House at Disneyland next summer. This is in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. This looks interesting, though I don't know that we'll be able to go out to Disneyland for this event. I know some real Haunted Mansion fans, who I'm sure will try to get out there.

So for you Disney pinheads out there -- here are two events you may be interested in!