DL/DCA pin trading/buying among the CM's

[Luv2Roam]

We were at DL/DCA Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday.
I took many traders in my pin bag and on a few lanyards. But, I didn't need to take many. It was interesting and fun, but disappointing too. Pin trading/buying at WDW last January spoiled me.
At WDW, the pin carts had LE's on cards available to purchase. Not so at DL/DCA. The only LE's I saw for sale were some boxed/framed sets.
At WDW, the CM's lanyards had a variety of pins. Not so at DL/DCA.
Anyone looking at CM's lanyards could pretty much predict what would be on them without looking: parade pins, map pins and a few 2000 graduation pins, with a rare 2001 grad pin. A few attraction pins thrown in here and there. Mushu carrying a globe everyone had. It is a LE of 5000, but I think the CM's had all 5000!
I spoke with CM's, mentioning there was no variety and not really anything--period. A couple responses (in a joking manner -- nothing sarcastic) was, "Well you gave them to us." (Not me, I replied.) Or, our lanyards look better than before. On two of those last remarks I asked how they looked better now. Both times the reply was the CM's lanyards were full of junk before. I replied to both, "And that's different from now in what way?" Gave both pause to think.
But I guess anyone wanting parade or map pins would have thought they were in heaven.
Also, I thought it rather stunk that CM's are very particular what you trade them. But they certainly aren't what they trade their guests.
They will not accept partial sets, (one pin out of a two or three pin set) or hat pins. But I did see some on their lanyards that they wanted to trade me. (Acting like the small Epcot hat pin or one pin from the see/hear/speak no evil three pin rack set was a good trade.)
I had read if you go during the week, leave your pins behind. That is not bad advice. I bought many rack pins, because I did like them. But after awhile you figure, Big Deal -- it's a rack pin. Just like WDW, I can call and order them later.
I was disappointed because I was looking for better CM trades (I did take good trades. I didn't spread junk pins around. I didn't see any CM pins worth getting out anything past another rack pin.)
The PLUS side: At any store/pin cart I was able to get a 10% discount with my DC card, as long as the purchase was over $50 (total before tax). Again, some CM's were sticklers. I had one sale total $49.50 pre-tax and I had to buy something else for the discount. I had another CM give me the 10% on a sale barely reaching $45. (And she was happy to do it.)
I worked a lot today on Pinpics, but still have more to update.
I'm Omega on Pinpics, if anyone is curious on some I picked up.

 

[JudithM]

Thanks for sharing your DL/DCA pin trading experience. I haven't been to DL in a long time, but I haven't heard the greatest stories about pin trading there. You'll just have to go back to WDW!

 

[peoplemover]

Let's think for a minute why the DL lanyards would have a lot of similar pins on them as opposed to what you would see at WDW. Doesn't take long. DL Resort = 2 parks, 3 resorts. WDW Resort = 4 parks, 3 waterparks, over 20 resorts, and many other things (speedway, Downtown Disney, etc.). I think that these posts about how "bad" the pin trading is with the CM's in the parks at the DL Resort are really not painting an accurate picture and they are going to make people think that pin trading at DL is no good, that they should not even bother with it, etc. Why should they think that when it's not true! I posted this on another thread and I don't want to retype it so I will quote it:

I was at DL from April 25th till May 8th, I think it was; that's almost 2 weeks. May 5th is when the big switch happened at DL. Let me explain what the lanyards were like before the big rules change. There were 2 men who would go around the parks and dump these cheap-o pins made overseas, they were very thin, possibly even plastic, with a smooth gold finish on the back and a smooth nail-polish-like layer of epoxy over painted characters on the front. These people probably got these pins for about a nickel or a dime apiece. EVERY lanyard was plastered with these pins as well as mini-map pins on about one in every 10 lanyards. There were no official Disney pins, no cloisonne pins, nothing, unless you got out there very early in the morning and happened upon a manager who would care enough to have his/her lanyard redone overnight. This had been the case for some time. If you traded with a CM for anything off of their lanyards, you were trading WAY down, quality-wise and money-wise!!!

I'm thinking...the way the lanyards are NOW is a vast improvement over the conditions I described above. Unless it's completely changed from when I was there (which is pretty darn near impossible), the lanyards are still GOOD, they still have official Disney cloisonne pins on them, they still have a good selection of what is available at the DL Resort since they are limited pin-subject-wise in what they can do, and the parade pins ARE limited editions of 5000 each. (and is there really anything wrong in finding several other LE pins like Grad Nite pins on lanyards, I'd rather have any LE than a rack pin!!!) DL did a LOT of work taking all the cheap epoxy pins from overseas and trashing them, and then replacing them with official Disney cloisonne pins...I wouldn't want to be one of the CM's who had to do that up until May 5th when the rule changes went into effect. All this for us, the Guests...I don't think we have too much room to complain.

Raise your hand if you want the little epoxy-covered pins that were made overseas on each and every lanyard instead of the official Disney cloisonne pins!!! I don't see any hands.