I was actually, thinking about starting a similar thread. Now that I've gotten up to my ankles again in online pin trading (I have always had a little in-park trading at the Epcot event), and have had some successes, I was thinking about actually sending out some Pinpics offers. I have always avoided doing it, because after years of reading people's rants about unbalanced offers, I don't want to offend anyone.
My question is... Some pin outlets deal in really low LE pins (300 or less): WDI, DSF, UK Disney Store, Disneystore.com When people buy these for traders, what are they expecting in return? Similarly low edition pins from one of those places that they can't get to? Or will they accept some park LE pins in trade, even though those edition sizes might be LE 750, 1000, 2000? I'm thinking pins with popular characters, and with retail prices equal to or greater than the price of the low edition pin. WDW sells quite a few for $11 or $12, while WDI might be $9 or $10 pin. Or would people look at the difference in edition size and scoff?
My trading philosophy is more "you know it when you see it." Mostly, I end up using the price I paid to acquire a pin as a guide. Pins I paid more for, I want to trade for a more HTG or more expensive pin. I have a couple pins that I paid $12.95 for, so I don't want to trade those for an open edition pin. Meanwhile, I have a couple pins I traded off cast lanyards during the "glory days" of pin trading, pre-scrapper/counterfeit times when DL would put their excess LE pins on the lanyards. There were times you could find many of the 100 Mickeys, and the Attraction poster series on lanyards. The cost to me was a lanyard fodder pin, so while I prefer to trade them for a similarly sized edition pin, I have traded them for older open edition pins that I really wanted. Same for pins that I bought at an outlet store or Disney CM pin sales.
I think 95%, maybe even more, of the pins aren't worth more than their retail price. They might spike at the beginning, or once they are sold out, but over the long term, the price drops and they can be acquired for a reasonable price. Considering there are 63,000 pins listed on Pinpics, this leaves about 3000 pins that would fall into this category. So probably, it is more than 95%. The trick is figuring out which pins are part of the 5%. Wants/Trades ratios can help, Ebay prices can help. I remember when the WDW Castle Dangle Pins were HOT commodities, and now I have twice seen people selling them for $5, and the Pinpics ratio is nothing special these days. I can look on Ebay right now, and see that many of the DA LE 100 pins sell in that $20-$40 range, which I don't think is all that different than when they were originally sold. And there were a bunch in that price range that didn't sell at all. There are those certain HM, Stitch, Tink, Jessica, Maleficent, Alice stuff that is going to cost you. But even in those themes, not all of those pins goes for multiple times its original selling price.
I also think in terms of brackets.
Hidden Mickey series, booster pack, GWP,: I think there are massive amounts of these pins in circulation so I don't want to trade a lot for these. My Dad lives near WDW, and trades. I give him a list of what I am looking for, and I get them for the equivalent of a park trader.
Open edition pins: If a pin has been unavailable for many years, it can bump it up to a higher level. But if the pin is still being sold, I don't rate it very high, but higher than the first group. Again, it more comes down to retail price. Some are $6.95, some are $9.95, so I like to stay similar priced for similar priced.
LE Pins: Most of this group I go by a combo of retail price + edition size.
HTF/Holy Grail pins: The 5% of pins that are going to cost you. Cash, multiple pins, super low LE sizes.
Now my experience, is more on easily acquirable pins. Open stock, or higher LE pins. So I have limited experience of exactly what happens with trades in that 5% group. The nitty gritties.
And one last story. The first pin in my signature, I have wanted for YEARS. No one ever wants to trade it, not very many people even have it on Pinpics. I have looked on Ebay on multiple occasions and not find one. There was one in an Ebay store for $25, and I was wondering if that was going to be the "cost" to complete my sign series set. Also, I have seen someone here, and on Dizpins (maybe the same person) trying to track down that Lost Parents sign pin too. Well, I bought my pin for $5.99 on Ebay on Sunday, and the Lost Parents pin sold for the same price. Only one bid. Hopefully, the person here who wanted it got it. But even though, for a long time this pin was "unavailable" to me, it didn't mean it was valuable.