How do you tell on older pins
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How do you tell on older pins
- Thread starter CHOPTOP
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If you are talking about the rubber Mickey ears, many of the older Disney pins did not have them but had a gold metal butterfly clasp. On the other hand, many fake Disney pins have rubber Mickey ears. I would think it would be difficult to tell if you have fake pins or not just judging the metal clasp vs the rubber Mickey ears.
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I've been collecting since before Disney started pin trading. I know in Jan 2005 I bought pins that when I received them, I knew something was wrong. I asked the seller about them, and he called them "factory seconds." At that time, there was no "stigma" so there was no reason for him to lie about them. I also know that the release of the global cast lanyard series in 2005, was when people started noticing a lot of trouble with the pins. Before that, there was a period where I started seeing people selling pin lots for $2 a pin or so at the NFFC sales and on Dizpins. I think I purchased a set of these once, and I noticed one was supposedly from a low LE pin set, and ones that were slightly different from the actually released pin. Such as [pinpics]25287[/pinpics] which was added to the Pinpics database in Sept 2003. I believe that this group is of the true "scrapper" variety. Disney pin rejects, as opposed to counterfeits.
This is a bit of a long way of saying that I think the old stuff is mostly okay. There were some pins that were counterfeited because they were HTF and in great demand. Things like the Wet Paint pin, the first WDW POM Disneyland which I wrote a fairly detailed post about in the comparison section. 2003-2005 ish pins I think you have to worry about scrappers. 2005 and beyond you have to worry about counterfeits.
In those early days, I don't think most people recognized the "value" in the factory rejects or counterfeiting because everyone was getting their "cheap pin fix" from the Sedesma and ProPins. It was only after those dried up, that people really started searching for alternative means. By that time, the seconds were already distributed by whatever means the Chinese factories usually do. Which I'm guessing means that employees took them home for their kids, or sold in street markets and still ended up primarily in the hands of Chinese families. Molds destroyed or whatever.
Not that someone shouldn't be vigilant if they see something very strange about a particular pin. Especially open edition pins that were re-released so the last batch would fall in the "scrapping and counterfeiting" time period. And I'm not sure the counterfeiters would want to counterfeit the older pins because the edition sizes were so much larger than pins nowadays that there would be little to gain. You can buy authentic pins from that time period for dirt cheap. I think this is why we're seeing so many new DA counterfeits. There's a market for those.
This is a bit of a long way of saying that I think the old stuff is mostly okay. There were some pins that were counterfeited because they were HTF and in great demand. Things like the Wet Paint pin, the first WDW POM Disneyland which I wrote a fairly detailed post about in the comparison section. 2003-2005 ish pins I think you have to worry about scrappers. 2005 and beyond you have to worry about counterfeits.
In those early days, I don't think most people recognized the "value" in the factory rejects or counterfeiting because everyone was getting their "cheap pin fix" from the Sedesma and ProPins. It was only after those dried up, that people really started searching for alternative means. By that time, the seconds were already distributed by whatever means the Chinese factories usually do. Which I'm guessing means that employees took them home for their kids, or sold in street markets and still ended up primarily in the hands of Chinese families. Molds destroyed or whatever.
Not that someone shouldn't be vigilant if they see something very strange about a particular pin. Especially open edition pins that were re-released so the last batch would fall in the "scrapping and counterfeiting" time period. And I'm not sure the counterfeiters would want to counterfeit the older pins because the edition sizes were so much larger than pins nowadays that there would be little to gain. You can buy authentic pins from that time period for dirt cheap. I think this is why we're seeing so many new DA counterfeits. There's a market for those.
Just an added note - many pins from the late 1980s and 1990s did not have any backstamp at all -this is because Disney stamped the plastic grey card they were on instead. I have many of these on original card as sold in the parks, no backstamp whatsoever -these are legit designs like Snow White, and Peter Pan.
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