New Pin Collector - Educate Me

[DisneyMom53]

We are headed to the parks soon and my teen daughter would like to do some pin trading. She's been to Disney many times before and has collected a few. I'd like to buy her some for purposes of trading. What is the best way to do that? I've looked on Ebay, etc and see tons listed but have done a bit of research and hear that most of those are not authentic. I don't want to add to the "scrapper" problem but was not wanting to spend a lot on pins she plans to just trade. Can someone educate a beginner?

 

[Ltfightr]

My biggest advice is if she's going to get some to try to find a "trade set" that she doesn't love (does that make sense?). Try looking at a Disney Outlet Store or ShopDisney for clearance sets where you can several on a card.

My son has some pins that we got the last time we went and he wants to finish that set and then he has some that he got that he uses just to trade for what he does want.

 

[supernova]

Just by a crapload of scrappers. No one's watching these days with COVID, anyway.

 

[garris3404]

There are places to buy legit pins at a discounted price. I use 'dis trading pins 4 u'. Use code DP4U for %10 off

 

[UmmYeahOk]

Pretty much 99.9% of what’s on trading boards are scrappers, so dont invest too much. Once upon a time, I would go and buy such eBay pins, only I was investing heavily in them! Like a whole dollar, even more! Basically, I wanted my very young daughter to enjoy in the trading hobby without me going “NO! OMG! WHATS WRONG WITH YOU?!? I JUST PAID $20 FOR THAT!!!” Because they were a whole dollar, versus a random lot of 50 for $5, I felt like I was honestly giving back to the community, even though they were technically counterfeit. They were actually nice pins, actual characters even. Problem was, they were too nice, and most time my daughter didn’t even want to trade BECAUSE they were better than the crap offered on the boards. But the few times she did trade, at least someone else ended up with something quasi-nice.

We are going in 9 days, and my trading supply is running low. It would appear that the days of $1 pins are over, as all the Chinese sellers are charging shipping now. With shipping charges, that’s over $5 for one pin. I am fortunate enough to live near a Disneyland/store outlet. So my goal is to check out what they have. At $5, I may as well trade a true authentic pin. ...but still run the risk of keeping it. I wonder if the removal of free shipping will finally curb the scrapper issue.