Thanks guys. Since I've been collecting for forever, most of these were acquired at the time of original release. I'm not sure if Disneyland old timers are familiar, but when Cynthia Harriss was in charge there was something called the Disneyland Advisory Council. It's purpose was for collectors to provide feedback to Disney about what they wanted to see for food, merchandise, special events. Not sure how much Disney actually listened, but in 2001 my parents served and that meant they went to DL quarterly. I saved my pennies in order to send my parents with about $200 each trip to buy me pins. I also had a couple of visits for the NFFC convention in July. Then in 2003, my husband and I moved from WA to AZ. The first year we lived in AZ we visited DL 5 times.
Thankfully, this coincided with the release of the poster series. Actually, the first row were primarily collected via cast lanyard trading. Yep, Alice in Wonderland poster series pin on a lanyard. They just weren't that popular originally. Those were the good old days, before the HM/cast lanyard pin series and so they "refreshed" the lanyards with pins that didn't sell out. The lunch box pins, 3 of the 4 Pinocchio pins, and a good chunk of the attraction pins all came from lanyard trading. I also got lucky in that someone on the DIS Collectors board sold the Haunted Mansion one at cost, once upon a time. Most of the rest of the posters I was able to purchase myself, but the last batch I relied on the help of a friend who lived in SoCal. It was probably the least stressful multi-month release set I was able to complete. But it just goes to show, that given enough time, pins you thought were no big deal, can appreciate and become wanted pins.
My DL collection goes a bit off the rails after 2005. My parents moved to FL, so even though it was only 7 hours to DL my trips took me to the other coast. Then in 2008, we moved up to CO. I haven't been to DL since March 2006, and it's killing me. I'm pressing my husband hard, to go in late Sept, this year to see the DCA redo and the Halloween decorations.