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What exactly is a grail anyway????

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What exactly is a grail anyway????
Psycho Pixie

Psycho Pixie

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I am annoyed, perplexed, bothered, and nettled, by the over-use of the word "grail." Not mad, just annoyed.

What is a grail?
  • We cannot put a monetary value on the term, because for some people it would be any pin worth more than $20.00 and for others a grail would be a pin worth more than $100.
  • We cannot say the trade/want ratio should be this much vs that much, because a pin could be upsidedown trade/wants and still be something someone would be thrilled to finally get.

So what really is a "Grail" ?????

Bluntly, I find it bothersome when people post a for sale, trade, or auction with "grail" in the title unless it really is an impossible, HTF expensive pin. False advertising to me.

Personal opinion, but to me a grail is:
  1. High monetary value. Like say $50.00 or higher average recent purchase prices.
  2. t/w ratio of about 1/50. like trading 4 and wanting 200....
  3. Highly sought after character or series.
  4. Low LE, like 300 or less.
There are exceptions. like incredibly old, retired, OE pins with incredibly high want ratios and very few trading. But that's because the numbers balance eachother out to equal a very difficult to get pin.

I am not posting this to start a riot. Lets start discussing what really is a "grail" shall we?

What do you feel is a grail?
 
I agree with you. I don't even list my most wanteds as grails...They can be gotten...I just don't have the money for them lol.
 
For me a grail is a pin I have an incredibly hard time obtaining either because I have nothing to trade for it, no money to buy, constantly get out bid for it, etc. My current grail sells from between $40-60. It's not an expensive pin but I've lost the auction each time its come up on ebay. I've tried trading everything I own for this pin and I still cannot seem to get my hands on it. It does have a fairly good wants/trades ratio but even if it didn't, I still cannot seem to get my hands on it. To me that makes it a grail. It's a pin you have a hard time obtaining for any number of reasons.
 
Grail: the object of an extended or difficult quest - doesn't say anything about value or rarity, after all "One man's trash is another man's treasure"...a grail pin is something that has special meaning to a specific person and they have decided to try and find the pin that would become a centerpiece of his or her collection
 
A grail is a pin you would kill for or die for. Nothing less.

Everything else is just a pin you thought looked good on your signature.
 
I only list pins in my signature as "WANTS" (and there are plenty others I want just as much, but only so much can fit!). To me, a GRAIL is something super hard to come by/find, because it's availability is limited. Although some pins I want may be currently going for high $$$, if I had the money, they'd be accessible, so I don't consider them GRAILS...but they are for sure the pins I want the MOST and I definitely can't afford to pay high secondary market prices, so I just hope to eventually build up enough traders to get them. I don't think any of the pins I actually want are super hard to FIND.

--Melanie
 
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Pixie, correct every one can have a difference of opinion when it comes to specifics of the word "Grail", what it means to them, and they should be able to of course.

Now as a general term here on our forum when we think of a grail we are looking for the pin to be valued at least $300 with a ratio of over 300 people wanting. It should definitely be an LE if not it is a public pin and possibly thousands of them made.

Here is a pin of what our DPF community should consider as a good example of a grail (other pins with similiar criteria as I mentioned would fall in same category)

It's Limited Edition to 100 - 3 people are trading it - 341 people wanting it - it easily sells in the multi-hundred dollar bracket

Pin 39958: Disney Auctions - Elizabeth Gomes Signature Series (Sleeping Beauty)


pin39958


Hence folks a grail pin.
 
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I think of grails as almost unattainable. there are a few pins that I want and definitely dont think its possible for me to ever own them.
 
I agree with your definitions of grails, very accurate and fluid. However, in my experience with the sales thread I've seen folks use the word "grail" when referencing a sale they must have quickly because one of their grails has went on sale, thus the term "Grail Sale" or " Emergency grail sale". I do see how these could be misconstrued, but it's all looking at their thread and determining if indeed it's false advertising. It's sort of like when members post a thread with DSF in the title, just because they do so doesn't mean they want to start a riot. They might have a valid question to ask or something to address. So with the word "grail" it's subjective and the people who use it for personal gain are few in my experience.
 
I think a grail is something that is a pin that has been out for a while, and yet still unattainable.

I think when pins are first released and people claim to sell them as "grails" or people say I feel this is going to be a grail, is highly toning down the meaning of grail.

To me, a grail is something that you know will not be easy to get, not nessesiraly high in money value, as an older pin may not be expensive but just very hard to get.

For example Tangled dreams, I could class it as a grail. But it's not. It's a highly wanted. If I really really worked I could get it. For me a grial is Stitch with Donald Duck doll Disney Auction. I've been after this pin since I first started in 2008 and I've still never even been close to getting it!
 
A grail for me means a pin that's extremely hard to come by...a pin on my higher wants...I have several grails....hope one day to own them all but we will have to wait and see....
 
I think there is a difference between "grail" and "holy grail" for each person. We all have those tens of pins that we would love to own, but they normally escape us (by cost or rarity or whatever). For example, I would consider the Stitch Invasion pin series "grails" of mine, because they are both hard to obtain and expensive. However, there are other pins that I want more, because they have sentimental value or go with my collections better.

All of the pins in my signature are grails. The ones with crows are "Holy Grails" (I took the crown idea from Kupo!!). There are many other pins I would have liked to include, but I don't have the space to do so. The ones with crowns may not be the most expensive or rare, but they mean the most to me.

Designer Pocahontas has escaped me six times this year. She is always too expensive, the transaction falls through, I am outbid, etc etc. It is frustrating, but the hunt is entertaining in a way, so she is one of my holy grails.

The Elinor Pendant Brave pin is a holy grail because it is truly impossible to obtain. If it ever did come up for sale, I am sure I would have to fork over a LOT of money for it, which I don't normally have, being a poor college student lol. So therefore it is a grail.

The Gaston UK pin is not as rare, nor is it as expensive as the other two. But it is hilarious, and it would be the perfect center to my Gaston collection, so it is a grail. Yet I still cannot afford it lol. So it stays on the signature!

So for each pin, I guess I have a different reasoning behind why it is a grail. The list goes on and on! I'm sure its that way for each person. I mean, there is a reason its on your signature, right? :)
 
fluffystitch said:
I agree with your definitions of grails, very accurate and fluid. However, in my experience with the sales thread I've seen folks use the word "grail" when referencing a sale they must have quickly because one of their grails has went on sale, thus the term "Grail Sale" or " Emergency grail sale". I do see how these could be misconstrued, but it's all looking at their thread and determining if indeed it's false advertising. It's sort of like when members post a thread with DSF in the title, just because they do so doesn't mean they want to start a riot. They might have a valid question to ask or something to address. So with the word "grail" it's subjective and the people who use it for personal gain are few in my experience.
Click to expand...

nope, thats not what i am referring to. I am referring to when they say "grail for sale!" or "Grail Alert!"

when in reality the pin they are selling or auctioning is a LE500 or even 1000 that averages $30.00 on eBay and has a t/w ratio of 20 trading and 80 wanting. Seriously. NOT a grail, no matter what series it is from, or who the character is.
 
It's advertising. People want to sell or trade or pump up their pin so they say it's a Grail or it's VHTF or HTF or whatever. When in fact it is a LE300 DSF pin released last week. That's not a grail. I do believe in instant grails though. There are pins that come out and instantly are grails. Enchanted BT for example. But a grail should be a HIGH dollar value, super good T/W, etc. I think a lot of newer collectors though just want pins, to them they are grails. To us we saw them on sale. But if that is their grail ok. Just don't advertise your pin as a "grail".
 
Psycho Pixie said:
nope, thats not what i am referring to. I am referring to when they say "grail for sale!" or "Grail Alert!"

when in reality the pin they are selling or auctioning is a LE500 or even 1000 that averages $30.00 on eBay and has a t/w ratio of 20 trading and 80 wanting. Seriously. NOT a grail, no matter what series it is from, or who the character is.
Click to expand...
oh I see what you're saying. Then yes that is deceiving members. Then again we enter a problem. If grails are indeed subjective and have personal value, why can't someone claim a pin a "grail" if they really think it is? Is there a standard for grails then?
 
I tend to think of grails, less in monetary cost and more in terms of attainability. There are several very expensive pins that always seem to be available IF you have the funds.

My grail is the Dixie Landings pin in my signature. I'm sure most people would scoff at it, and the one time I did see it for sale it only went for about $55. However, this is what I've seen other people do in regards to trying to attain that pin. 1. Create auctions on Ebay for the sole purpose of advertising that they WANT this pin (they did this about 3 or 4 times, each one eventually being deleted) 2. Creating Craigslist listings in various parts of the country saying that they were looking for this pin. I've never seen one listed for trade on Pinpics, and in the now 3 years I have constantly looked for it (every 3 days for 3 years), I've only seen it the one time on Ebay. If that's not a grail, then by all means, track one down for me to prove how easy it is to get one. :)
 
To me, grails are pins I want very badly but can't obtain for whatever reason. (For me, it is monetary reasons.)

But my holy grail is the one I'd trade every single trader/some of my collection I own to obtain it!!!! (For me a grail becomes a grail if it means that much to me. I honestly couldn't care if it was $5 or $5000.)
 
Just my two cents....

But I think as a pin community, there should be 100 or less pins that are labeled as "Grails". Sort of the "babe ruth rookie card" of pins. With over 60,000 pins, and more coming every year, Grails are going to be used more and more loosely.

I for one, when I started trading labeled D23 pins as Grails, because I thought Id never get them... but as I started learning about the pin community, I changed my belief in a Grail.
 
TheOtherSteve said:
Grail: the object of an extended or difficult quest - doesn't say anything about value or rarity, after all "One man's trash is another man's treasure"...a grail pin is something that has special meaning to a specific person and they have decided to try and find the pin that would become a centerpiece of his or her collection
Click to expand...

This.

Because seriously... I've seen some ugly "grail" pins out there but that's my opinion. And just because 300+ people want a pin doesn't make it holier than any other pin. It could just mean 300+ people have poor taste. :D

Or they are jumping aboard the latest trend.

For me, a grail pin is any pin I want NOW and is at the top of my most wanted list. Some people love collecting pins for the thrill of finding a "grail" and other people absolutely love the pin they just picked up from an old booster pack. Go figure. It would probably be less confusing to call the pins in a signature as "Most Wanted" versus "grail" or something else.
 
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