What Would Happen If... Eliminating LEs

[mybabykelly]

I was lucky enough to get into pin trading in 2010, when holy grails could be found for $50 and new releases were generally no more than double the original cost. It felt like a peaceful time, when you traded and collected for the pure joy of the hobby. 2010 was a calm before the storm in retrospect.

Now the hobby feels like it’s in chaos. People understand that they can flip limited, rare pins for a huge profit margin and some even make a job out of it. I have flipped a pin or two before in my day, so I am no better than anyone else, but I feel like this sense of hyper-profitability can ruin the hobby as a whole. In essence, anyone who is on a budget, doesn’t have excess expendable income, or someone who just enjoys a newly released pin for what it is (but not at an inflated price of $300) may never be able to attain said pin(s).

Believe me when I say that I get it... as you start out in the hobby, hidden mickeys and park pins are “cool” and “enough” and “board worthy” as another member puts it, but once you’re exposed to the quality of lower edition pins, for most collectors there is no going back. You are emotionally invested and you will pay extra for the enhanced quality/design of an LE. Let’s face it, LEs have different/more creative designs than the stock imaged park pins and less chances of scrappers than the hidden Mickeys. LEs are simply more desirable to some, maybe because of their value, or their design, or their quality/size, or their rarity, or the fact that “I have it and you don’t... he he ha ha”, or a mixture of it all.

The reality of it all is that these are not gold, and they should only hold the value of sentiment/the original cost. I understand that as things get older and harder to find, the price can increase. But I find it ridiculous that a pin released today for $30 shoots up to $400 the very next day because it is LE 300 or because someone camped out overnight for it or because 10,000 people would love to add it to their collection but Disney limited that opportunity/happiness to only 300 (and if you don’t live in Florida or California, you’re entirely screwed). I get the concept of supply and demand, but supply and demand to my knowledge would mean creating open edition/high quality pins so that Disney profits more from them ($15x300 edition sized pins is far less than $30x10,000 edition sized pins).

Disney is actually working against its collectors (and for the scalpers) by supplying only limited amounts of high quality pins. Whether limited edition or not, I can totally see a pin like the WDI heroines set selling at $30 each and being open edition. Or better yet, why can’t Disney create a pre-order system where they put up a design, collectors pre-order the pin, and Disney casts (is that the right word for the pin-making process?) that number of pins according to the pre-orders so they never take a loss or make too many. Maybe I’m oversimplifying here but you get my point... work with us Disney.

So my question is, why can’t Disney release high quality open edition pins like the WDI/DSSH/Employee Center pins in bigger numbers. Sell a set like the Beloved Tales online for $30 each but release 10,000. Sell pins like the WDI Hero/Heroines pins for $30 each and don’t put an LE on them. Wouldn’t this mean more profit for Disney, less secondary market scalping, and happier Disney pin collectors?

Maybe I’m mistaken, and for some reason this could actually hurt the hobby in the long run. I get the allure of LEs and the thrill of the chase and rare collectibles and profitability.
I’m sure the over-saturation of beanie babies can be used as a comparison, especially after that “stock crashed” (even though Disney is so beloved and has so much history it would be hard to oversaturate at this point). But I get that over-saturating the market with countless open editions could in the grand scheme of things have a similar affect...

With all of that being said, I don’t actively collect anymore (though I do help my best friend collect Pluto pins), but it’s just sad that Disney has made sharking/scalping so easy... there are so many collectors out there who just genuinely desire pins of quality and could still afford and would still shell out $30 for WDI quality pins (double what Disney sells it for anyways). And in eliminating LEs, Disney would make way more fans happy and give everyone across the states and internationally an opportunity to extend their collections without having to sacrifice other amenities (like rent, or food, or churros in the park).

Are there any downsides to this? Would you prefer LEs to remain the same, or do you think Disney could release open edition, high quality pins akin to WDI/DSSH/Employee Center pins and still keep the hobby booming. Obviously it would mean pins are no longer like “stocks” and that they may not retain their value. But valuing pins monetarily takes away from the essence of pin trading IMO, and if a few collectors were turned away by that aspect, maybe they were collecting for all the wrong reasons anyways.

Just the long-winded midnight rant of a longtime, sleepless fan

 

[starry_solo]

LOL. If they released too much, they couldn't sell all of them.

 

[stratasfan]

Oh, I think they have gone overboard with LE pins in the past years. Too many are only released LE. Some characters/movies are practically only released on LE pins, and it makes it super hard to get one, when you are on a budget. This hobby has many who think they are investing . . . but like every other collectible . . . they aren't worth anything. They are only worth what you are willing to pay for it. The minute that character or movie or topic or pin trading as a whole becomes a thing of the past --- you can kiss you investment" goodbye. Talk to anyone who has been in a collectibles field for a couple of decades. Things won't retain their value. People now don't have long attention spans and are very fad driven. They move on, the hobby is discarded, the items forgotten. The ones who suffer are/will be the ones who went into it thinking they were investing in something they could profit from later. I collect Lilliput Lane houses. Little house figurines made in the UK. I collect them because I like them and they just give me happiness points. I've never paid more than I had spending money for at the time for any single one, but I've collected a hutch and cabinet full. They were a cut-throat field while I was doing it. then the founder died of cancer and Enesco closed the company. They aren't worth anything anymore. the only people selling them are people stuck with them. Collectors moved on, as there was nothing new to add for their collections. It will be the same for pins.

Personally, I think pins are more fun for the actual trading and collecting. Not the actual LE number or manufacturer or anything else. We take all our pins (that aren't positive keepers) when we go to visit Gramma in FLA and we get to go for a couple of days to trade at Disney Springs. Sis and I trade with anyone and everybody. Even if we don't really want pins they have, we trade anyway, as it is so fun just to trade and meet the different people. Makes other happy to trade, too. I am not sitting there putting a value on each pin. We've run into a few of those and they are the sour apples of the trip. And it can spoil the experience when someone comes in with dollar-signs before pin trading fun. The best are high-school and college kids --- They are so excited to be looking for a character or topic they love!

So, I think they should ditch all these LE pins. I think the only thing it does is create a hang-up in people's minds about their pin's value. A few of them a year would be cool, but it seems like they are always releasing LE and LR pins and sets. Try and get Robin Hood pins. Most are LE or LR pins. Kevin from UP . . . most are LE or LR pins. Spells death to the fun-collecting.

Of course, this is just my two-cents added to mybabykelly, but I think the OP post is very poignant. I would totally say that LE and LR pins are going to be an ultimate big wheel in the downhill slide of pin trading.

 

[mybabykelly]

LOL. If they released too much, they couldn't sell all of them.

Exactly! Similar to open edition/rack pins, they would oversaturate the pins so that they are readily available and resellers can’t hike up the price.

I mean, pins seem relatively cheap to make with a huge profit margin, if they made too many would it be a huge loss?

 

[stratasfan]

Disney is NOT losing money on cheap pins. They are paying pennies a piece for those pins themselves. You've got to figure most is mark-up. They are just Chinese made pins. When you work for a company and hear what items actually cost . . . it would floor you! I'm talking imported goods. Not the nice Made in USA stuff or food, etc. Orient-made goods.

Actually, even in the US and Mexico . . . for instance . . . any store-bought DVD movie costs way less than $1 for a company to have the finished product in hand - Disc, case, inserts, shrink-wrapped - ready to sell.

From what I know of Chinese-made pieces similar to pins . . . less than $0.25 and less than $0.10 depending on the pin. So, Disney is never going to lose.

 

[mybabykelly]

I wonder how much more it is for Disney to produce the WDI/DSSH quality pins. Is it in the same ballpark as the hidden mickeys, or significantly more.

 

[Spr175psu]

Honestly, I don't have any problem with the increased manufacturing of pins or the LE sizes. My issue is with the secondary market. When there are pre-sales for pins, any pins, at oftentimes ten times their original cost, that isn't recognizing the market and selling at its existing value, that's creating the market and almost demanding that this be its value.

The sharks are, and have always been, the problem. Sure, that gets partially defeated if we have LE sizes of 10,000+ or have every pin be open edition, but there really isn't any fun in that IMO. Part of the fun for me is in the exclusivity, having that rare pin that when I look at years later, I remember what it took to get and how hard I tried to find it.

The enjoyment, at least for me, is in the chase, not in the acquisition, and that would be lost if everything was so easily attainable. I would love it if that exclusivity didn't mean an exorbitant increase in monetary or pin-trading value, but anything worth getting and worth doing is not easy and not meant to be. If I'm willing to pay shark prices to get that special pin because I don't have the same level of access to them as they do, then, to be perfectly honest, so be it. Remember: fair market value is what a willing seller sells an item for AND what a willing buyer is willing to purchase the item for. Sharks only exist because buyers are willing to pay ten times the original cost to get their hands on that thin piece of metal.

But I don't really see the problem with having varying LE sizes and Disney saturating the market with pins. My prized possessions are two LE 15 Mr. Toad pins that were near impossible to track down. It's sad, but if they were easier to acquire, and if thousands of others were able to acquire them as easily, I would still love them, but it wouldn't be the same. The same memories simply wouldn't be connected to them. And I, for one, as you all know, welcome as many new Mr. Toad pins as they can make, even if they are all LE 1!

 

[stratasfan]

From my experience knowing a company doing other collectibles . . . it would be more than the HM pins, but not that much more. If I were to hazard a guess . . . I would guess HM pins cost pennies (like under a dime) and that the bigger quality pins would go up but be under $1. I can't imagine there are tons of pins that cost them multiple dollars to actually make.

 

[stratasfan]

I would add to your statement of fair market value . . . I would say that fair market value is only what someone is willing to pay for it. A seller can ask any price. That doesn't determine the value. Only what someone will pay for an item determines the value.

 

[mybabykelly]

What if Disney released two versions of the pin, one “open edition” version and one alternate, “limited edition” version of the pin. What comes to mind first are the park pack pins or even pre-production pins. While to my knowledge the alternate versions of the park packs had the same edition size, in my example the alternate would be the rare, limited pin. These alternate pins (much like PPs) could have different coloring, or metal, or could come with a COA.


I get that people love the chase, and I would hate to see the collectability of these pins plummet by oversaturation or ease of attainment. But I don’t feel like Disney has ever tried to find a happy middle ground for collectors, and the sad part is that they turn a blind eye to the scalping that is going on. As of now, the way I see it is that pins are either rare and overpriced, or cheap and low(ish) quality. I want to see WDI quality pins available to people without having to shell out $300.

 

[starry_solo]

So, of course Disney doesn't "lose" money by making more of a product per se. But they kind of do. Think about shelf space at the store at the park....if you have an item that just sits there because there are so many of them that the collectors don't want them, then you're just going to get the average park goer to buy them, but will they buy that one or what? Many buy pins to commemorate trips so they would get a dated one, an attraction related one, or just a basic mickey/minnie.

 

[mybabykelly]

But I’m speaking as if across the board, Disney Parks and ShopDisney and DSSH and WDI all produced “open edition” and “alternate limited edition” version of their pins. They could still have park specific/store specific releases where WDI releases Hero’s/Heroines, DSSH Beloved Tales, Disney Parks Hinged books, just open edition versions of them too.

Shelf space sounds like an easy fix. I mean, let me overgeneralize here with numbers I’m completely fabricating: Disney sells 10,000 pins at $30 each. Disney spends $10,000 making that pin. Disney profits $290,000 on a single pin release. If the pin doesn’t sell out within a month, they could literally burn/destroy half of the product and still see huge profits.

My theory mainly works with online releases since it would be available to a wider collecting community. However, pins at the parks still sell in masses and you see some around for a loooong time, even though they are the same stock images that are overused to death. So having pins on their shelves doesn’t seem to bother Disney Parks...

 

[Spr175psu]

I would add to your statement of fair market value . . . I would say that fair market value is only what someone is willing to pay for it. A seller can ask any price. That doesn't determine the value. Only what someone will pay for an item determines the value.

I actually disagree with this statement. There needs to be a "meeting of the minds" in order to reach an agreement as to price, similar to any other contract. I would only pay $18.95 (or whatever it was) for one of the villain profiles since that was their original cost. But nobody will sell me a villain profile at that cost today. Therefore, I will not be able to purchase the villain profile at what I would be willing to pay for it. That does not mean the value is $18.95. That may be the value to me but someone else may be willing to pay $100 for it. And if that is what the seller is willing to sell it for, then that is its value today. Tomorrow, the value may increase as a buyer may pay $150 for it.

Sure, I can charge whatever I wish for a pin, but you're right that if someone does not wish to pay that amount, then the seller has not dictated the value. However, buyers, unfortunately, do not dictate value either. They can certainly negotiate and try to bring price down, but what bargaining power do they really have? It isn't their pin and the seller is not required to sell.

For example, let's say I have a pin that I personally value at $50. If a buyer says he will only pay $30 for it, then what happens? Either it gets sold for $30 or it doesn't. But that decision is ultimately up to the seller. Do they wish to accept less than what they feel it is worth or would they rather keep it? Since that decision is not in the hands of the buyer, then there needs to be a "meeting of the minds" and both parties have, in essence, dictated value.

 

[hopemax]

I didn't think we were allowed to have these types of conversations on the forum any more. Generates too much drama.

I almost commented on the "Did you survive August" thread. So I'll just say it here. I don't think you have to eliminate LE pins, and I don't think the current amount of releases is anything close to over-saturation. However, the LE sizes should be bigger than they are, and keeping them so small is limiting the growth of the hobby (been saying this for 15 years now) among actual collectors. Now that DSSH is doing more online releases there is no reason why they can't be selling LE1000 pins. They aren't going to get stuck with them, except when they made some pretty lackluster designs for Star Wars and PoTC movies. There is no reason why WDI can't sell higher edition when they have their public D23 events and shopping days.

Your thread touches on the underlying problem more. The shear amount of money involved to keep up. But that's not really the number of pins. In the first decade of pin trading there were far, far more releases than there are now. New OE pins came out much more frequently (several per week, every week, not a dozen or so about twice a year), there would be no way to do a "one sheet" LE release calendar, etc. The problem is that pins don't cost 6-$100 anymore, they cost $12-$2000, and the ones people want are $50+. Other than a small portion of people with large incomes the rest of us can't keep up. It should blow up at some point, because normal people run out of money, and the fact that it hasn't, and keeps escalating has me concerned.

I have suspicions on what is fueling the high end market, but that would probably be too much drama. We know criminals already have targeted Disney pins in multiple ways (counterfeiting, theft rings) and that Disney pins share the same characteristics of other items such as LEGO, that makes them popular with criminal enterprises: untraceable, quick resell, high price points. We refer to the sharks, but what if it's worse than that? @Spr175psu touched on the idea of "creating the market, demanding the price." All it takes is a couple of FB or Ebay sales and then the price is "justified" and certainly criminals have the means to pull that off. There have already been enough rumblings about the ideas of fake sale prices. I just wonder what it all means if the high price points are a lot more orchestrated than people think. And now everyone is conditioned as if this is all normal somehow.

 

[hopemax]

The sharks are, and have always been, the problem. Sure, that gets partially defeated if we have LE sizes of 10,000+ or have every pin be open edition, but there really isn't any fun in that IMO. Part of the fun for me is in the exclusivity, having that rare pin that when I look at years later, I remember what it took to get and how hard I tried to find it.

Does the exclusivity have to come from being an LE15 though? For example, Jabberwocky has been looking for a Walt pin for 10-15 years now, and can't find it at any price. There is nothing about the pin's original release that made it special or valuable, but now it's impossible. Us old-timers can point to other pins that their original availability should by no means have made a pin difficult but yet they are. And there are many, many OE pins from 20 years ago that are now difficult for people to track down based on some of the pleading that goes on on FB, and while not "top shelf" are still $50-$100 pins. You can't find enjoyment in owning an item that was easy for you to get, originally, but now years down the road, people are desperate for?

 

[mybabykelly]

lol @hopemax I promise I’m not trying to start any fires

My biggest question is, who here is happy to pay over $200 for a pin that retailed at $18.99... I feel like sometimes we as the collectors enable scalpers because we feed into their game. I get that buyers don’t set the price, but if no one buys at hiked up prices, the sellers are either stuck with shiny pins or are forced to lower the prices. I get that it is almost impossible to prevent people from buying at these absurd prices, but it needs to level out at some point or else people are going to be spending the average person’s car payment on the newest WDIs.

Let me reiterate that in 2010 I was able to purchase the Beloved Tales Little Mermaid for like $50 and you could routinely find grail type pins on eBay for under $75 bucks (pins that had been released years prior at that).

Like @hopemax said, maybe the true problem lies in the inflation of the pin trading community. Maybe an LE1000 could sustain the smaller pin trading community in the first decade of the 00s, but these past few years we’ve seen such a boom in the hobby and there are so many new collectors. Now an LE1000 doesn’t necessarily spread out as evenly as it did before, especially since scalping feels like its at an all time high as well. And maybe the fewer releases has a similar effect (fewer pins, more traders, higher prices)

The easier solution seems like it would be for Disney to keep churning out high quality releases like they did in August... and funny enough, it kind of worked because you can find some of the WDI villains and DSSH dark tales for decent prices on the bay. Even the DSSH wedding pins are relatively low for what one would expect.

 

[Spr175psu]

Does the exclusivity have to come from being an LE15 though? For example, Jabberwocky has been looking for a Walt pin for 10-15 years now, and can't find it at any price. There is nothing about the pin's original release that made it special or valuable, but now it's impossible. Us old-timers can point to other pins that their original availability should by no means have made a pin difficult but yet they are. And there are many, many OE pins from 20 years ago that are now difficult for people to track down based on some of the pleading that goes on on FB, and while not "top shelf" are still $50-$100 pins. You can't find enjoyment in owning an item that was easy for you to get, originally, but now years down the road, people are desperate for?

No, not necessarily. It's just an example of a pin that was impossible to find and when I look at it, it's special to me because I tracked it down with a lot of help along the way and didn't come easily. I agree, that same sentiment can be found with any pin, but more often than not, if it's an older pin, coupled with only a handful made, it is most likely going to be difficult to find.

lol @hopemax I promise I’m not trying to start any fires

My biggest question is, who here is happy to pay over $200 for a pin that retailed at $18.99...

I'll answer your question with a question: who here is happy to pay $300K for a house that sold 10 years ago for $150K or sold when originally built for $100K? The market changes and we must change with it. We must understand that value does not remain stagnant and we must adjust our feelings about what value is, and it isn't original cost oftentimes.

Yeah, it sucks that we can't buy that pin for $18.99 anymore and we never even had the chance due to lack of access, but there have been many pins, and there will be many more, that I have been willing to pay several times above original cost to get my hands on a special pin to me. And, parenthetically, I'm sure we'll all be happy to be the ones to buy that house for $100K and sell it for $300K. We all wish that today we can buy that house for $100K but it simply will not be the case.

 

[hopemax]

lol @hopemax I promise I’m not trying to start any fires

My biggest question is, who here is happy to pay over $200 for a pin that retailed at $18.99... I feel like sometimes we as the collectors enable scalpers because we feed into their game. I get that buyers don’t set the price, but if no one buys at hiked up prices, the sellers are either stuck with shiny pins or are forced to lower the prices. I get that it is almost impossible to prevent people from buying at these absurd prices, but it needs to level out at some point or else people are going to be spending the average person’s car payment on the newest WDIs.

Thus why this all should be unsustainable. Because we are no longer talking about people deciding whether to eat ramen for a month, or get a pin but rent money and car payment money. We can re-evaluate when the next recession hits.

Let me reiterate that in 2010 I was able to purchase the Beloved Tales Little Mermaid for like $50 and you could routinely find grail type pins on eBay for under $75 bucks (pins that had been released years prior at that).

If you wanted to spend $200 on a grail in 2010, I promise you those were there. They just weren't the pin you were looking for and so you didn't see them. And I promise you that there are pins you can buy today for $50-$75 that in 10 years will be grails.

Like @hopemax said, maybe the true problem lies in the inflation of the pin trading community. Maybe an LE1000 could sustain the smaller pin trading community in the first decade of the 00s, but these past few years we’ve seen such a boom in the hobby and there are so many new collectors. Now an LE1000 doesn’t necessarily spread out as evenly as it did before, especially since scalping feels like its at an all time high as well. And maybe the fewer releases has a similar effect (fewer pins, more traders, higher prices)

The pin community wasn't small in the first decade. The community then, could sell out LE1000s in hours, and LE3000 pins in a weekend. That's how many ex-collectors there are. I actually think there are fewer pin collectors now than there were. And the proof lies in the number of releases Disney has, and the number (or lack thereof) supporting events, accessories, etc. And the lack of sellouts outside of specific types of WDI/DSSH pins. Really, there is profile or round type pins and that's it. A healthy hobby has a diversity of options, characters, styles. We don't have that. Pins not spreading out, I think is a sign of less people not more. We have fewer options in where to obtain them so the limited sellers are able to set a higher price. It's not as easy to trade for it, because I see a lack of trading than there was 10 years ago, and I see less Ebay listings for new releases as well. We talk it away by saying that so many sales moved to FB and IG, but I think it's more than that. There simply are less sellers.

 

[hopemax]

I'll answer your question with a question: who here is happy to pay $300K for a house that sold 10 years ago for $150K or sold when originally built for $100K? The market changes and we must change with it. We must understand that value does not remain stagnant and we must adjust our feelings about what value is, and it isn't original cost oftentimes.

But this assumes normal market forces at work. Using real estate as an example, we now have places like Vancouver BC putting additional requirements in real estate transactions, because the market was being disrupted by foreign investors buying property that they were perfectly happy to have sit empty, while a housing shortage was making it impossible for residents to buy homes. They didn't just tell their residents to suck it up and find away to pay the higher prices. They recognized things were playing out differently than in the past, and that new rules were needed.

 

[mybabykelly]

My main concern here is not a pin increasing in value as time passes. That makes sense. My main concern is an $18.99 pin OVERNIGHT rocketing up to $200 and it’s the new norm.

 

[Spr175psu]

But this assumes normal market forces at work. Using real estate as an example, we now have places like Vancouver BC putting additional requirements in real estate transactions, because the market was being disrupted by foreign investors buying property that they were perfectly happy to have sit empty, while a housing shortage was making it impossible for residents to buy homes. They didn't just tell their residents to suck it up and find away to pay the higher prices. They recognized things were playing out differently than in the past, and that new rules were needed.

My example is apart from the shark issue, which I mentioned is a very real problem. Pins are allowed to increase in value over time without it being a result of foul play just like houses increase in value without foreign investors interceding and driving up costs.

The Little Mermaid Beloved Tales pin was used as an example. That price on the 'bay has been north of $900 for a while now. Believe me, I check on that often. That price isn't the result of sharking I would argue. My point is that we need to separate the explosion of so-called values when pins are first released (or even before they're released) with the understanding that pins will get more rare and naturally increase in value. For pins in the latter category, yes, I would be willing to pay a premium to get them because I know that if I wanted them at original cost, that ship has sailed a long time ago.

 

[hopemax]

My example is apart from the shark issue, which I mentioned is a very real problem. Pins are allowed to increase in value over time without it being a result of foul play just like houses increase in value without foreign investors interceding and driving up costs.

The Little Mermaid Beloved Tales pin was used as an example. That price on the 'bay has been north of $900 for a while now. Believe me, I check on that often. That price isn't the result of sharking I would argue. My point is that we need to separate the explosion of so-called values when pins are first released (or even before they're released) with the understanding that pins will get more rare and naturally increase in value. For pins in the latter category, yes, I would be willing to pay a premium to get them because I know that if I wanted them at original cost, that ship has sailed a long time ago.

Except that some of us were here when the prices for certain pins spiked, and remember that it was because a specific buyer who also purchased a well known Pin database that is in a continual state of disrepair, was purchasing, or having his business partners purchase, multiples of specific types that went up for sale and hoarding them (at that point Ebay was not hiding the usernames of buyers). The manipulation may not be happening today, but the the floor was set via manipulation until the point where it became "normal." It wasn't talked about in public, because drama! But that is what happened.

I think the goal was for the failed pin grading operation, but the collateral damage was the perception of what was a fair price for high end pins. The tail wagged the dog and people assumed the prices must be justified, because of all the high end sales going on, and it was the "price to play."

 

[akarih]

Except that some of us were here when the prices for certain pins spiked, and remember that it was because a specific buyer who also purchased a well known Pin database that is in a continual state of disrepair, was purchasing, or having his business partners purchase, multiples of specific types that went up for sale and hoarding them (at that point Ebay was not hiding the usernames of buyers). The manipulation may not be happening today, but the the floor was set via manipulation until the point where it became "normal." It wasn't talked about in public, because drama! But that is what happened.

I think the goal was for the failed pin grading operation, but the collateral damage was the perception of what was a fair price for high end pins. The tail wagged the dog and people assumed the prices must be justified, because of all the high end sales going on, and it was the "price to play."

Wait so this all happened because of the PP owner and that was when people realized they could hoard and sell pins at ten times the original price?

 

[hopemax]

Wait so this all happened because of the PP owner and that was when people realized they could hoard and sell pins at ten times the original price?

It's not quite that simple. There were other players, involved as well who started throwing insane amounts of money around at the same time. Some would claim they were just playing Robin Hood and helping out fellow pin traders, but the point remains that they PAID the price, playing a role in establishing the value of specific pins. And if that pin was worth THAT, then certainly this other pin must be worth THIS, and so on. Others who didn't know about "sales occurring for specific reasons" and simply thought that the prices must be fair market value, contributed with their own purchases, legitimizing them. And I think the money (along with the 2 day lines at the Soda Fountain) attracted the wrong type of attention so the players are of a different sort than your "friendly neighborhood pin trader" (although, pin collecting has always been shady). And now it's too late to put the genie back in the bottle.

 

[starry_solo]

I think it also has to do with FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)...at least on the latest releases.

I know I am guilty of it....oops.