Disney Pin Collecting Archives - Living a Disney LifeLiving a Disney Life

You don’t have to be a Disney pin trader or even a pin collector to appreciate what great souvenirs the right pins can be. Commemorating a special milestone, a beloved ride or attraction, a favorite character – is easy and relatively economical with Disney pins!

We do like to pin trade – as entertainment versus serious hobby. We love searching out pin boards and books at out of the way locations. We also like meeting and visiting with Cast Members as we peruse their pin collections. Mostly, more than anything, each of us loves to find a pin or two that we…gosh, “connect with” is such a weird choice of words here…find meaningful, I guess, would be more what I mean.

I can’t speak for the rest of The Fam, but I can browse rows and rows of pins in stores and spin those pin display racks for a long time and still walk away empty handed. Then, once or twice during each Walt Disney World visit, I’ll see a pin that just grabs my interest! Maybe it’s a particularly cute version of a classic character that I’ve never seen before. Maybe it’s a double pin set (Doug and Mr. Fredrickson, for example) that is too cute to resist. Maybe, pins with a certain year on them – seriously, I normally don’t care, but this year was an important year in MY life, so having a pin with the year on it meant more to me. You get the idea. I love it when I find a pin I’m sure Raymond, Megan, or Joseph would LOVE and I can buy it on the sly and surprise them with it later – sometimes, on rare occasions, I can curb my enthusiasm enough to hold on to a pin until Christmas and slip it into someone’s stocking.

If you’ve never visited the Disney Pins Blog, it’s a really fun place to hang out – even for us casual pin traders/collectors. I particularly love looking at the upcoming releases of Disney Cast Member pins – I formulate plans for how I may score one or two (or five) on an upcoming trip.

Pins come in singles, doubles, collections, mystery sets, and more. Currently, though, according to the Disney Pins Blog, the color-coded pricing of general pin stock is as follows:

GREEN = $7.95
RED = $8.95
BLUE = $9.95
YELLOW = $11.95
PINK = $13.95

Think about it – if you’re looking for an easy to carry souvenir, a keepsake, a memento – for a maximum of $13.95, you can take home something durable – a lasting, timeless piece of your Walt Disney World vacation to remind you, in the years ahead, of a very happy and special time.

For my tips on getting started with pin trading, read this. For an explanation of Chaser Pins, check here. Want to make pin collecting into an adventure? Read this.

Do YOU love Disney pins? What’s your favorite pin? What pin do you want to get next?

We’ve been collecting and trading Disney pins for about 10 years. On that one visit to Walt Disney World where we first took notice of all the adults and children wearing pin-filled lanyards and saw all the fun and clever pins for sale – well, we jumped right onboard! Once we figured out how to make pin trading and collecting into a game – like a scavenger hunt, we became even bigger fans!

Yes, I know what you’re thinking – it’s another Disney trick to get you to part with your money – and you have a point. If you let it, the cost of buying pins can easily amount to a significant chunk of change. I’ve been to some pin trading events (at WDW resorts and on Disney Cruise Line) and there are people who have spent thousands of dollars and many, many hours accumulating impressive pin collections (I imagine some of them have similar amounts of Beanie Baby or Pokémon items, as well). All things in moderation is my motto!

Rather than break the bank, our family likes to make Disney pin trading into more of an adventure than a passion. We each pick out several pins from our existing collection that we’re willing to part with before we leave for Walt Disney World (so we have some to trade away). We think about any series of pins we have that may be missing one or two pins to complete the set and decide what we’ll be hunting for. For example – when we were at WDW a couple of weeks ago, I was looking for the last Orange Bird pin I needed – the “flying” Orange Bird. Everyone knew what to look for and, like a scavenger hunt, we all looked for that one pin until it was found (by Raymond on a Cast Member’s lanyard in Animal Kingdom). Raymond and Joseph were looking for Jessica Rabbit pins – old or new, to buy or trade – and they managed to find a couple to add to our collection. Megan just wanted a Frozen pin – any one would do. This proved the most difficult challenge of all! After chasing down several leads – most of which were fruitless, we finally found some Olaf pins early one day in Magic Kingdom (I’m sure they sold out later).

Hunting for a particular pin adds another level of fun to a Disney vacation! Whether at a Disney park or on a Disney cruise, we all get into the spirit of the hunt and, by doing that, we’re able to keep our pin purchases from eating up our entire souvenir budget.