how do you group your collection? need help to start organizing!

so i am in the process of organizing my collection. this has been long overdue and i was hoping for some suggestions. do you organize your keepers by character or by sets? for instance i am trying to decide whether to have all my belle pins together, or perhaps break some out for christmas pins or maybe other sets she is a part of. hoping for more experienced collectors to get me started off in the right direction. also, i just got some of those baseball card type pages. do you all use those for your permanent collection or just for traders? thanks in advance for sharing your wisdom, lol!

I display most of my keeper pins on canvases or in shadow boxes and the majority of those are by character, or movie. If the pins are from an actual set like a specific Hidden Mickey series or something like the Funny Business signs series then those I would keep on the same canvas/shadow box so I can remember which ones I may still need. Or if I have all of them they make a pretty collection.

My trade book is pretty small but I keep those organized by general groups like "princesses", "cats", etc, etc. I always feel overwhelmed when I look at other trader books and the categories are organized by LE size or Disney Park release. LOL, I can remember what pins I want, but I sure as heck can't always remember what edition size it might be or what month/year/park it might have been released.

thanks for the reply. i think part of my problem is that i've never been to a trading event as i don't live near a park . it would be interesting to see everyone's books/collections laid out to see how they have arranged their pins. i can see what you are saying tho as to how confusing it could be if they are grouped by le size, etc. i have always just put them in the disney pin bags, but the newer bags have those littler pages and i don't really like them. i prefer the older bags with the larger pages.

I collect them by movie; Tangled, The Incredibles, Emperor's New Groove. Sometimes PATF as well. My keepers are in frames and small pin bags (the collections that aren't big enough for a frame yet). My traders are in random spaces all over the house.

I went into the pin collecting which such a specific theme that grouping was pretty easy. My collection is of Disney's rides and films based on Jules Verne. Here's a slightly out-of-date photo of it:



The second frame is just my souvenir collection, which is easy. In the main frame, I have it arranged so that nearly all the Disneyland Paris Discoveryland pins are in one section (along with a Panoramagique pin), nearly all of the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Mysterious Island-related rides are in another section, that one character set of Mickey and co. as 20,000 Leagues characters are in one section, and then my little diorama of Mickey and co. as the Nautilus crew with Disney undersea characters (I've since added Tic-Toc the Crocodile to that diorama). I figure that was a fun, dynamic way of breaking up my one big collection into smaller units for display.

I don't know if that helps for ideas. It sounds like you have a few more collections than I do, with some more overlap.

I've been pin collecting for eight years or so and in the entire time I've only been to one pin trading night at WDW. Everybody always talks about these fun and amazing meets and how wonderful it was to get together to trade, so I wanted to go to see what it was all about. Honestly I've never felt so out of place as I did there. Nobody cared who I was when I tried to introduce myself. The majority of people there had multiple suitcases and plastic totes of pins and 85% of the people sat in small cliques talking to each other, most looking annoyed when I ventured by to ask to take a peek at their traders. Fewer still were even interested in what pins I had to offer unless it was to tell me how unworthy or unequal the pins were to the ones they offered. I left after about 45 minutes and decided my morale would stay intact better if I avoided any future gatherings.

As far as a pin bag, mine is an older one with double sided cloth pages. It's almost impossible to keep the backer cards in those though, and would seem to be easier to do so in a book that has pages similar to baseball card pages, although they can become cumbersome very quickly, or so I have seen and heard.

^ Everyone's first PTN is like that - including mine. Then the more you go and the more people you meet, the easier it gets - and then people think you are part of a clique because you know so many people.

As far as organizing - I only have one theme - Wonderland - so I organize by character for about 95% of the groupings. The only exceptions being a few sets that really needed to stay together - i.e. character train sets where they all connect together or hidden mickey all-Wonderland sets, etc.

I wish that was all there was to it, Jabberwocky, but I've met up with other traders at the parks and every time I left feeling like I wasn't worthy of being known. People engage even for a few minutes when they want to get away. But no one even talked to me and as soon as they offered a name, would walk off/away to visit with someone else. I sat back and watched, and these same people would greet other strangers differently if said person had a pin they wanted. They also ignored people who held nothing of their interest and not in a polite, "no thanks" way but in a "why are you even bothering me" way.

froggerway said:

I wish that was all there was to it, Jabberwocky, but I've met up with other traders at the parks and every time I left feeling like I wasn't worthy of being known. People engage even for a few minutes when they want to get away. But no one even talked to me and as soon as they offered a name, would walk off/away to visit with someone else. I sat back and watched, and these same people would greet other strangers differently if said person had a pin they wanted. They also ignored people who held nothing of their interest and not in a polite, "no thanks" way but in a "why are you even bothering me" way.

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Really - you're not alone. Everyone feels that way. I know a ton of people in local trading, but if I walk up to people I don't know, it's still intimidating and it always feels like you're being rejected like a high school nerd. The trick is to develop a thick skin, keep trying, smile and move on. Eventually you do run into friendly people happy to chat and trade. But it takes persistence and that thick skin.

thank you all for the responses : ) the collections in frames above are just beautiful! i was just sitting down trying out the baseball style pages. it was really nice the way i could put the cards into the slots with the pin. the problem i now see is what you mentioned. even with a huge binder with d rings , the pages are so thick. yikes, not sure this plan will work : / it probably works best with smaller pins like HM's but i was trying it for my more special pins. hmmmm. i think i will probably just try to separate by character as best i can. does anyone here know where to get pin bags like the older versions, where the pages are the full size of the book? when i was last in wdw, the pages in the books left like 2-3 inches around the perimeter of each page, so it was just dead space inside the bag. not sure why they changed that. if anyone knows where to get the older style, i would really appreciate it if you could let me know. thanks again for sharing and those frames above are gorgeous!

I keep my pins together by theme, movie, or characters. My main collection is Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs. I have all my Snow White pins with that collection besides one pin that has Snow, Aurora, and Cinderella on it. I ended up keeping that pin with my Cinderella collection. My Fab5 collection also includes Chip n Dale since they are classic characters.

ps, as far as the events go, i think i would feel pretty intimidated. i honestly don't know if i would trade because my knowledge of worth is not there. i have collected over the years and really go for the pins are love, some being the more rare but others not. it would be cool to walk around and just look tho.

You can always try eBay, Amazon or etsy for older style pin bags. Another well known pin site sells bags as well: http://shop.pinpics.com/PinPics-Pin-Bag/dp/B00J30855K

thank you : )

froggerway said:

I've been pin collecting for eight years or so and in the entire time I've only been to one pin trading night at WDW. Everybody always talks about these fun and amazing meets and how wonderful it was to get together to trade, so I wanted to go to see what it was all about. Honestly I've never felt so out of place as I did there. Nobody cared who I was when I tried to introduce myself. The majority of people there had multiple suitcases and plastic totes of pins and 85% of the people sat in small cliques talking to each other, most looking annoyed when I ventured by to ask to take a peek at their traders. Fewer still were even interested in what pins I had to offer unless it was to tell me how unworthy or unequal the pins were to the ones they offered. I left after about 45 minutes and decided my morale would stay intact better if I avoided any future gatherings.

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Eep! Sounds dreadful... I've never been to a PTN myself (my trips never seem to coincide with one), but I regret not having the time and money to have gone to events like Camp Pin-E-Ha-Ha. I think that was one of the last interesting pin events Disneyland did... or any kind of event Disneyland did, as a matter of fact. I wasn't particularly interested in the pins themselves, but the activities and things looked like a fun way to spend a day. More things like that would entice me.

For the traders, maybe it's luck of the draw. When I ran into some traders at DL on our 2012 trip, they were actually pretty nice. This was in Frontierland, when the round tables were there. I made one trade, and the other guys who weren't interested in trading were still nice about it. I didn't encounter at traders on our trip to WDW last year, so I don't know it compares coast-to-coast and over the years.

Start with Girly or boyish, ie Princess/Tink or Sci-Fi/Cars/etc. From there I go by Movie/Attraction. Then character, then by rarity/distribution. So on one page might be Tangled, all from WDI/DSF, 2nd page might be Tangled from the park or open edition. Other book, page 1 might be Star Tours, mostly from WDI, then park, 2nd page is Marvel, mostly DSF, etc.

I go by movie/characters. So all of my Snow White pins are together, including Dopey and the other dwarves. etc.

All mine are in bags (well most).

There are:
1. Mulan Bag;
2. Belle Bag;
3. Rapunzel Bag which also holds some misc. princesses;
4. Sci-Fi Bag (minus LGM);
5. Mickey/Minnie Bag;
6. Jessica & LGM bag;

and a few others that haven't made their ways into bags. Those are in boxes (Frozen, Brave, and a few other side collections)

starry_solo said:

All mine are in bags (well most).

There are:
1. Mulan Bag;
2. Belle Bag;
3. Rapunzel Bag which also holds some misc. princesses;
4. Sci-Fi Bag (minus LGM);
5. Mickey/Minnie Bag;
6. Jessica & LGM bag;

and a few others that haven't made their ways into bags. Those are in boxes (Frozen, Brave, and a few other side collections)

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i am probably going to do it this way too. i was just thinking about sets where the set includes a pin for each princess for example. i may just split the sets up and put each in their own collection. thanks for the post : )

a large majority of my collections are on cork boards by theme, some boards have 2 themes until they merge and fill the board then everything adjusts as needed..

With themes that take multiple boards (Minnie) they are sorta grouped by theme within a theme (Minnie as Princess, Holiday, Pirate etc)

Smaller themes goes in either the pin cabinet (a custom made chest with shallow corked drawers) or the pin bags sorted by theme, some have grown to have their own bags but usually its a page or two each (most are pins themes I "dont collect" yet end up with them (innocent whistle)

Yes I know the pins have a higher chance of damage on corks but I didn't spend ALLLLLL the money to have them hidden away and very few of them are 'irreplacable' so I prefer to be surrounded by them in our "pin cave"

If I have collected, or are attempting to collect an entire series/set, I keep those together, and try to frame them and get them on walls.

If there is a pin that technically is part of a series/set, but I only own 1 or 2 because of the characters, I store those with the character stuff.

There have been pins that started out with the character group, but then I acquired additional pins, so I moved it to the series book.

I like to display my keepers on display boards and shadow boxes and lanyards hung on the wall. I like to SEE them! They make me so happy to look at when I'm just sitting at my desk or wherever.

I gather them by movie/character, and I expand as my collection grows. At first I had an Alice in Wonderland board, a Princesses board (for pins from Cinderella, Mulan, and Princess and the Frog) and a lanyard for Brave pins. Then I added a board for miscellaneous things like the character hats and shoes, and a board for all my favorite attractions, like small world, haunted mansion, and tower of terror. Oh and a board for ravens and crows. And a lanyard for Administrative Professionals Day pins.

I now have a large Brave board, a larger Alice in Wonderland board than before, a board just for Cinderella and another just for Princess and the Frog, a lanyard for Mulan (which is almost full now), a lanyard for Tower of Terror, a board full of Small World and Haunted Mansion (and I had to stop collecting Pirates), a big shadowbox of Administrative Professionals Day pins, the crows and ravens board and the board for hats and shoes and hidden mickeys.

In addition to that, I like to separate out sets that are special and I know won't change because I have them all. I have the Disney Gallery Alice in Wonderland pins that my best friend gave me in a separate shadowbox, and another separate shadowbox for the 2013 monthly posters pins (plus the Oswald Lucky 13 pin; 13 is a special number for me). I'm planning to do a shadowbox for the Small World Mystery collection if I ever get all of them.

I don't have a ton of traders so they're all in one pin bag/book. It's the kind with cloth pages, but it was REALLY hard to get pins in and out of those and keep them in straight rows, so I stuck coraplast in each page (the same stuff I make the display boards out of) and they work great. I've always organized the book by LE; oddly enough it was so that *I* could remember what LE the pins were! But I've been thinking about reorganizing my trade book by category before the next meetup I go to this weekend.

I've never been to one of the official Disney PTNs, but I have been to several pin gatherings arranged by traders. If you get the opportunity to go to one hosted by David (docfish2u) and Amy, like the one coming up in May at DLR, DEFINITELY go. The people are always friendly and welcoming at the docfishes' events!

thank you all for these informative posts. it's really helpful to hear what fellow pin lovers have found works for them : ) i don't know what colorplast is. i am thinking it is a type of foam board? where do you get it? i have used cork inserted in to a pin book page so that i can skip the backs. is it like that? the last trip to wdw with my ds i bought us each a corkboard for all of the pins we traded for, sort of like a little time capsule of our trip. i guess i'm sort of all over the place, lol. thank you all : )

Coraplast is corrugated plastic, like they make yard signs out of sometimes. I get it at my local craft store. I find it works better for me than cork; it grips the pins more tightly.

Vixy said:

Coraplast is corrugated plastic, like they make yard signs out of sometimes. I get it at my local craft store. I find it works better for me than cork; it grips the pins more tightly.

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oh! had never heard of it . i will definitely check it out. thank you : )