Is Disney slowing killing pins in 2015? Your thoughts?

I could see pins going the way they did in Tokyo where you're not allowed to trade at the parks anymore and it's more of a collecting thing there.
Reading what goes on at the events shows people are getting out of hand. Clearly not everyone, but enough that could ruin it for everyone else. The company could possibly back away from pins for a little until things cool off and wait for some of the out of hand people clear out into a new hobby.

Will they stop producing pins? That's very unlikely. These things cost pennies to produce and the markup is huge. When you buy a pin from Disney you're just handing them a fist full of profit. That's just how the pricing on things like these work.

The internet whilst a brilliant resource in most respects, has I feel had a hand in the demise of pin trading. Whilst it brought people together globally, and is great for sharing information about pins, it has enabled those that see the profit in the hobby to abuse it. Many grumble that Disney arent giving us advance notice of pin releases, and I agree for a true collector it is annoying, but it is one way of curbing the pin mania. It relaxes that inner beast, who says I need that, day after day when we see new releases. It also means that the real holiday makers visiting Disney get a chance to buy pins, and its not so easy for those trying to make a profit, to get the pins first. If you just step back a moment, there is reason in all the madness!

Romancing_Train said:

Paris still has thier events and everyone is constantly jealous of the pins that come out of them; and they have thier ptn pins too which people love because they're nice quality.

It looks like Disney is taking their money and designs and giving them to the people who appriciate them more.

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If you don't think people act up at the Paris events, then you haven't been talking to the right people. They abuse each other and the staff just as much as the other locations do. And if "bad behavior" was an indicator of why we're not getting anything, then California SHOULD be dry as a bone, when it's obviously not.

While bad behavior and complaints might be affecting some of their decisions, it's definitely not the only factor here. And remember- Disney fields just as many eye-rolling complaints about every little thing from their everyday, non-collectible buying guests, too. If there's real profit to be had, it seems like the kind of thing they could handle (especially if they fix some minor things, because let's face it....not all the complaining is unwarranted).

pinnochiolover said:

It relaxes that inner beast, who says I need that, day after day when we see new releases. It also means that the real holiday makers visiting Disney get a chance to buy pins, and its not so easy for those trying to make a profit, to get the pins first. If you just step back a moment, there is reason in all the madness!

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Well, except it hurts a certain subset, for sure. For one thing, I have traders in both Hong Kong and Tokyo that I buy for, and we swap. They relied heavily on being able to go to the site and look at upcoming releases. Now, it's much more difficult to let them know what's coming out...I might miss something completely if it sells out between my trips.

And it definitely hurts completionists, so used it to keep track of park releases for their characters/themes. ESPECIALLY now that Pinpics can't be trusted to keep up-to-date. We no longer have the kind of encyclopedia/database that we once had. Which, to be perfectly honest, is a much bigger blow to pin trading than almost anything that Disney could do...

So while the lack of a release web-site is not a big deal to some and allows a certain freedom, it most certainly hurts other traders/collectors.

speedwaystar1 said:

I personally quite like the flyers , although as my local park is DLP I've had longer to get used to them . I do wish they'd include open edition releases too though , even if they came on a separate flyer once a quarter .

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For DLP the OEs are on there... Are you speaking about the other resorts? I never really know what comes out anywhere but here >_<

Abyssinian28 said:

If you don't think people act up at the Paris events, then you haven't been talking to the right people. They abuse each other and the staff just as much as the other locations do. And if "bad behavior" was an indicator of why we're not getting anything, then California SHOULD be dry as a bone, when it's obviously not.

While bad behavior and complaints might be affecting some of their decisions, it's definitely not the only factor here. And remember- Disney fields just as many eye-rolling complaints about every little thing from their everyday, non-collectible buying guests, too. If there's real profit to be had, it seems like the kind of thing they could handle (especially if they fix some minor things, because let's face it....not all the complaining is unwarranted).

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I haven't seen this behavior at the DLP events but it wouldn't surprise me, I've heard and seen some really entitled behavior in general but thankfully none directed at the staff but I go pretty rarely to events?pin trading nights :/

jessatattoo said:

I haven't seen this behavior at the DLP events but it wouldn't surprise me, I've heard and seen some really entitled behavior in general but thankfully none directed at the staff but I go pretty rarely to events?pin trading nights :/

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Well, yeah...I mean it's not like it's a stinking cesspool every time. For every release where there's troublemakers or complainers, there's probably 5 more where everything runs smoothly- at all locations. But to say that's it's all rainbows and sunshine in Paris would be incorrect, too. That's why the theory that "Good pin traders get rewarded and bad ones get everything taken away" is not a valid one, which is why I replied with that.

I never said it was, and I am aware of it's problems.

But here in California and in WDW there's much more problems and much more things are being done to counter that.

Romancing_Train said:

I never said it was, and I am aware of it's problems.

But here in California and in WDW there's much more problems and much more things are being done to counter that.

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Well, at the end of the day, all we have is speculation. It might have much more to do with management than the guests. Maybe they run things better in Paris, resulting in fewer complaints. And don't forget that the foreign parks have co-owners. OLC decided that pin trading wasn't worth it...maybe the HKDL and DLRP companies have a larger commitment to pins and the profits they bring, and therefore, their decisions aren't really based on what's going on in "pin trading" as a whole.

We've all heard rumors and cast members discussing two main factors in the lack of pin activity from the company- lack of staff/department merging, and the difficult guests. I think, all together, there's numerous factors at play. But if I had to peg what my gut is saying the real reason is...it's apathy and lack of creativity, as well as a basic lack of understanding of their product and how to play to it. Hard to say how far up the chain of command, but somewhere up there, they're basically saying it's better to give up rather than do a couple of quick and EASY fixes. Or thinking of awesome new ideas. They've also dumped an insane amount of work on a small handful of people in order to reduce man hours (which is just ridiculous to me...do you know how much profit Disney makes? Those poor cast members).

They're just doing the bare minimum to get by, and relying on severely over-worked staff to do it all.

As probably one of the oldest collectors around (15 years in April) that has stayed in the hobby since the beginning (no breaks, collection sell offs, ect). I think many factors, already mentioned, are contributing factors to the changing of pin trading as we see it today. But this seems to happen every so often.

My personal opinion only, but I feel the ups and downs of pin trading rest mainly on the pin collectors/traders and sellers. The constant complaining, even at the old, 'free' events, never ceased. Pin people complain about everything to Disney. The behavior at the events is embarrassing and one of the reasons I quit going. I would think after 14 years of events, free and hard ticket, that Disney has had enough. The last PTN at WDW was beyond sickening. Grown adults acting like spoiled brats. Horrible. And we, as a whole, were rewarded with no more pin trading nights. (I believe there has been mention of pin trading events--but that's yet to be posted, other than the Sept. event at Epcot).

Disney is also to blame somewhat. They were producing LEs for just about anything back when. After a while, it just broke the collector's bank and most just gave up and moved on. Said LEs started to linger and linger. They were then shipped to the outlets or Cast Connection at reduced prices. Some of the pins, still sat there. There were also some quality control issues.

There were also other outlets for pins, Disney Auctions, Disney catalog and the Disney Store. Pins everywhere!! The market became flooded. When big, beautiful DA PINS were at Cast Connection at $5 each, there was a problem!!

We also have Iger cutting corners everywhere to maximize profits. Tho, I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised to see an entire revision of all the core/rack pins for the 2014/2015 year!! Some super designs, ect!! Thank you someone at Disney for caring. If no one there cared, they would have kept on, keeping on with what they had on the racks. I just wish I could have run into Iger today at DAK since he were there visiting this AM.

We also can include, as mentioned above, Dizpins closing, the sale of pinpics, which is now so horribly behind and refusing to think they have done anything but a stellar job in their acquisition. People have turned to FB, IG, ebay and other like outlets. So, the close community we once shared is now all over the place. The gotta-have-it-nows have taken over and I think gone are the collectors who really collected for the sheer joy of it. They aren't interested in the pins from yesteryear, only the newest Frozen whatever and then onto the next one. Once that craziness dies down and the next movie takes it's place, comes the liquidation of the Frozens.

For whatever reason, people come and go. That's the nature of most hobbies.

Last, but surely not least, the invasion of fakes. I think that was truly one of the biggest downfalls of the hobby. People have no qualms buying fakes and trying to pass them off at the parks and/or to other collectors in social media. I'm at WDW quite often and can tell you most people who walk up to the CMs are trading fakes. A lot are 'regulars' who know better. I'll stand there for quite some time just watching. It's just boggles my mind that so many think it's OK to do this. And just a side note to anyone who says some people don't know better... If you buy a brand new Coach purse for $5 and know full well one at the store costs $600, then you know it's fake. No one is that ignorant. So people who buy the fakes on line for $.25 know they aren't buying the real deal. I don't care if they are brand new to pin trading or not.

And one last thing. I totally understand what Ethan was saying about the magic bands replacing lanyards that once held all that was needed for the parks. Now there is no need for the lanyard if you have your plastic band on. Personally, I hate the things, hate the concept and won't wear mine. I know they aren't going away, I still hate them. The band-its, add on decorations or whatever they are called, are junk. I find them all over the place at WDW. Mostly broken ones, but lately, perfectly good ones. Waste of money.

Pins in general have a market durability that most other collectibles don't have. Whereas things like Pogs, Beanie Babies and Vinylmation are extremely faddish and follow that fast, boom-bust product life cycle outlined earlier in the thread (honestly, the first time I saw a Vinylmation, I immediately thought "oh, Pogs"), lapel pins have endured as a souvenir and collectible for eons. As an item that is relatively inexpensive to make and inexpensive to buy, I can't imagine them ever ceasing production altogether. The extent to which they support pin collecting and trading as a hobby community is up in the air, but Disney has very strong popular support for pins. When on Disney property, I see people with pins EVERYWHERE. People who don't even think of themselves as pin collectors collect Disney pins.

If the high point of official "Disney Pin Trading" has passed, that's not necessarily a bad thing for people who genuinely like the pins and what their collections signify to them emotionally. Someone earlier in the thread talked about how much they enjoyed just trading pin-for-pin... That's really what it should be, in my opinion. When I do a search for pins on that auction site, and I see pins I like for love of the movie they're from being marked at $75 or $150 or $300 (never SOLD at that price mind you, just marked at it)... well, I can't wait for that to end. When all is said and done, the real value of a pin is what it means to the collector. If the speculator market wafts on, that can't help but be good. Granted it sucks if you were banking on pins as an investment or like PTN's, but I gather from reading this thread that fewer and fewer people actually enjoy going to those.

Anyways, silver linings!

When I was at WDW in October with my whole extended family (4 generations) it was great to see my nephews beginning collecting and my grandmother (or gg to nephews) beginning as well. It was something everyone could do and have fun with. It seemed to still be very popular but we did get many fakes (with a 2 and 4 year old trading it was too hard to control without meltdowns). And I wish Disney would do a better job at weeding out the ones that are obviously fake, but besides that I think it is a hugely profitable endeavor for them that won't end anytime soon. I think that Disney over reached with the Disney store remodels "Imagination Park" that they were going to do back in 2011-12. And they have really shifted from having brick and mortar stores to being online and focusing on parks...at least in the US. But when my family began pin trading with the millennium countdown pins, they were available in stores and here in Omaha we had two disney stores and one higher end Disney store with art work, etc. now we have none in Nebraska or the surrounding states so it is harder to get new pins unless going to the parks, happening on the small online collection disney offers or resale from others. I think the dynamic has shifted a bit, but it will continue to be popular and profitable for Disney for a bit longer. As people have mentioned they are small, making the storage and display of them easier then other collectables. I used to collect snow globes from Disney but they too at one point became a hot product and then the market was flooded and it was too hard to keep up with them financially but more importantly logistically in not having enough space to display them. They have since died down in popularity again and have gone back to having a reasonable number a year, and I think pins may follow a similar path except in that it will remain an easier hobby to get into price and size wise.

I went to DLR last week after not going for 3 years and I noticed a major drop in the amount of CMs wearing lanyards for trading with guests, I really had to look for them, and the few I did find were full of scrappers and crap. I didn't see anybody trading either at the old spots either, so where are people trading at now?

I just think disney is running out of ideas
Lady and tramp pins always in a heart, fox and the hound almost always in log, olaf and baymax same pose? They almost all look boring and the good ones (for ever laugh there's a tear) get canceled. PTD I like when they include characters that were minor in movies.