UK Pin trading advice...

Apologies in advance if this has been posted elsewhere! I'm still learning how this all works!
First question -

I've been trying to get hold of pins in Disney stores and tried the biggest in Oxford St (apparently this is the biggest store in Europe?) but alas no pins. To my surprise though they did offer trading there. Are there other Disney UK stores that do this? So far I haven't found any others...and the selection was a little weak to say the least.

Secondly -

I've been lucky enough to book up a mini break to Disney Paris in March of next year and can't wait to trade some pins for the first time. But I hear so much negativity; am I likely to just end up with fake pins and rubbish? How can I tell?
I made the mistake of buying on ebay and threw away the pins as they were obviously fakes and nonsense...not even pretty enough to keep but even then I wasn't sure. I only kept three that to be looked real, but I'm worried they aren't. Is it worth trading with staff at parks at all?

thanks!

I'm afraid I don't know about the Disney Store situation , the nearest one to me is a few hours away and I haven't been in a long time .
As for park trading , it's true there are a lot of scrappers out there (PM me if you want to know where to get some genuine cheap ones from ) and you need to be extra careful when trading with CM's .
I'd suggest you look out for :
1. Paris Cast lanyard pins , I think there's a picture here on DPF somewhere for reference , to my knowledge none of those have been scrapped yet
2. Open Edition rack pins
3. Booster pins , although a few sets are scrapped extensively like the shoes / skills , most aren't

And completely avoid Hidden Mickey pins , far too many are scrapped .
Any further questions , feel free to ask

speedwaystar1 said:

I'm afraid I don't know about the Disney Store situation , the nearest one to me is a few hours away and I haven't been in a long time .
As for park trading , it's true there are a lot of scrappers out there (PM me if you want to know where to get some genuine cheap ones from ) and you need to be extra careful when trading with CM's .
I'd suggest you look out for :
1. Paris Cast lanyard pins , I think there's a picture here on DPF somewhere for reference , to my knowledge none of those have been scrapped yet
2. Open Edition rack pins
3. Booster pins , although a few sets are scrapped extensively like the shoes / skills , most aren't

And completely avoid Hidden Mickey pins , far too many are scrapped .
Any further questions , feel free to ask

Click to expand...

awesome, thank you! So is it better to trade from a cast lanyard than those board things?

Hidden Micky doesn't really mean anything to me, so I won't look for them in particular.
I'll drop you a PM ^^

ArttheAnimator said:

awesome, thank you! So is it better to trade from a cast lanyard than those board things?

Hidden Micky doesn't really mean anything to me, so I won't look for them in particular.
I'll drop you a PM ^^

Click to expand...

Sorry , slight confusion .
Hidden Mickey refers to the small pins featuring a Mickey head icon somewhere in it's design , I imagine most of the eBay lot you bought were like that . Paris Cast lanyard is a series of pins , similar to the hidden Mickey ones but bigger (usually) and much better quality , here's a link to a website with images of them all
passiondlp : pin’s cast member refresh lanyard

One tip I can give you is to try trading with CM's in the resort hotels or the shops in Disney Village , the park CM's tend to have been cleared of decent pins pretty quickly .
And ignore the pin boards , they're 99% junk all the time (They don't seem to clear them at any point)

speedwaystar1 said:

Sorry , slight confusion .
Hidden Mickey refers to the small pins featuring a Mickey head icon somewhere in it's design , I imagine most of the eBay lot you bought were like that . Paris Cast lanyard is a series of pins , similar to the hidden Mickey ones but bigger (usually) and much better quality , here's a link to a website with images of them all
passiondlp : pin’s cast member refresh lanyard

Click to expand...

Oh I see! Yeah they did have lots of little mickey logos on them. They were awful, really shabby things, off colour and pointy. I only found out that it's best to avoid big pin lots after I ordered them, unfortunately.

Thank you for the advice

speedwaystar1 said:

One tip I can give you is to try trading with CM's in the resort hotels or the shops in Disney Village , the park CM's tend to have been cleared of decent pins pretty quickly .
And ignore the pin boards , they're 99% junk all the time (They don't seem to clear them at any point)

Click to expand...

Is the Disney Village what used to be Downtown Disney?

Hi,

I believe only the Oxford St in the UK store has any pins(I travel the country for work and whenever in a shopping mall with a Disney store, I get the same answer.."We don't do them, but try the Oxford st store". You can get a small selection from the DisneystoreUK website.

Went to DLP over Halloween and was disappointed with the overall trading...CM's lanyards and boards full of scrappers/ebay "lots"

The Disney Village is similar to Downtown Disney(Florida). Just on a smaller scale and is close to the entrance of both parks.

Jack Skellington said:

Hi,

I believe only the Oxford St in the UK store has any pins(I travel the country for work and whenever in a shopping mall with a Disney store, I get the same answer.."We don't do them, but try the Oxford st store". You can get a small selection from the DisneystoreUK website.

Went to DLP over Halloween and was disappointed with the overall trading...CM's lanyards and boards full of scrappers/ebay "lots"

The Disney Village is similar to Downtown Disney(Florida). Just on a smaller scale and is close to the entrance of both parks.

Click to expand...

Is the rack selection as good in Paris? Funnily enough my brother went to Disney Florida a few weeks ago, and I asked him to grab me a pin. He said "they had a crummy selection, not much at all" which surprised me (though he got me one I wanted). But then, my brother has no interest in pins at all so perhaps he just meant no characters he liked!

The selection is not really comparable to WDW. There are some really nice Pins(picked up more than I should have), but hardly any Limited Editions. Not every attraction has a shop and not every attraction will have a pin. A lot of the shops that sell the Pins have a similar selection, but some variety can be found (The biggest variety I saw was on the shopping carts). I think the biggest let down for me was No Hunchback of Notre Dame Pins, but I guess its all down to personal taste...still lots of pins to choose from .........Looking to go back in February so can give an update then also.

The dlp shops that sell the pins will have the limited edition pins in display cases and you will have to ask a cast member to get them for you as for buying pins in uk the best way to get the le pins are on Disney store website this is what I do to get le pins hope this helps

Jack Skellington said:

The selection is not really comparable to WDW. There are some really nice Pins(picked up more than I should have), but hardly any Limited Editions. Not every attraction has a shop and not every attraction will have a pin. A lot of the shops that sell the Pins have a similar selection, but some variety can be found (The biggest variety I saw was on the shopping carts). I think the biggest let down for me was No Hunchback of Notre Dame Pins, but I guess its all down to personal taste...still lots of pins to choose from .........Looking to go back in February so can give an update then also.

Click to expand...

I'd love to hear your thoughts in Feb ^^


And I shall keep an eye out at stores Damien, thank you for the advice