I haven’t posted about pin trading in quite some time. You’d think this meant that my interest in collecting Disney pins had waned, wouldn’t you? The exact opposite is true, actually, I’m slightly ashamed that after all this time, my love for Disney pin collecting is a strong as ever.
It started long ago and innocently enough. What a fun way for our whole family to buy a few relatively inexpensive souvenirs and interact with Cast Members for pin trading. Those first few pins lead to pin lanyards – a gateway to entire pin sets. Before long, I was hooked.
My Disney Pin Addiction
ME! The woman who discouraged her children from collecting Pokémon cards and Beanie Babies. We were buying more and more for trading and collecting! I bought expensive pin sets and traded them all away. Pins I couldn’t live without joined the ranks of the growing legion of pins in our pin binder. The binder filled up. Still, the number of pins kept growing.
It’s not like Walt Disney World makes resistance easy; pin kiosks are everywhere. Free-standing kiosks in every park, specialty pin shops, pin boards everywhere. Worse, when I signed up online for runDisney events, pins to commemorate each event could be purchased during the race registration process. Of course, I had to have them.
It was bad enough that special pins were available for the Disney Magic’s inaugural cruise through the fjords of Norway (no way could I pass those up), but a special evening event for pin trading with the ship’s officers was part of the itinerary! 
We skipped dessert to make this event on time. Annnnd…it was worth it! Awesome, unusual pins to choose from and fresh lanyards for the Cast Members were distributed at regular intervals. Before long we’d made new friends and collected quite a few more pins to treasure.
As I understand it, the first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem.
I’m admitting nothing. I have a few Disney pins. I might, from time to time, pick up a few more here and there. I can stop anytime I want to.
What Disney items do you collect?
In all honesty, pin trading is one of my favorite Disney activities. We caught the pin trading bug a few visits ago and the four of us now have about 50 pins apiece. I know it’s not very many, but it’s a start. Ever since I was young I’ve been collecting one thing or another, so the pins are right up my alley. The best part about pin trading is that there are so many different characters/themes/attractions everyone can find something to collect, and who knows what random pin you may have on your lanyard that someone else has been searching for! Unfortunately, that’s also the worst part, realizing the pins you collect are few and far between; the four of us each collect different things, so there’s really no conflict there, but I rarely find anything I want and end up trading for something my wife or daughters might like instead.
The choices are so amazing- even when I’m not planning to buy anything, I end up with more pins!!!