Trading versus Collecting! The struggle continues! Pick your poison!

I have been back and forth on the trading versus collecting aspect of this hobby. I find myself getting more attached to the pins and less likely to trade so I decided to really try and expand my collection but also have a dash of trading!

Trading is a fun and interactive way to keep the Disney magic going in-between trips so I do not want to just stop trading...but I have found myself leaning more heavily on the collecting side.


If I have an extra $30 to spend I end up buying a pin that I will keep in my collection and not on a trader. I have been looking at some other pin sets and individual pins to try and pick up some I would be using solely for trading (but then I want to use the traders to expand my collection).

Its all about finding balance and I just have been back and forth on it!



I have also found that it helps when the pins I want to collect are WAY out of my price range (Robin Hood - Fox and Hound pins can get pricey)

Still its something I enjoy and hope my 2 year old little girl will enjoy some day too!

We leave in February for a land and sea trip then back in October for a week land stay with my mom/sisters (who have not been to disney in over 12 years so we are taking them with us as their xmas present)


So WHAT DO YOU GUYS LEAN TOWARDS? Or are you trying to get a nice balance of both??





Speaking of COLLECTING! Here is the biggest single purchase I have made just a few days ago! Right into my collection!

http://i.imgur.com/5YLugyS.jpg

I love how trading keeps people active in a sort of community way but must admit that I really only collect and get pins I like. I just don't have the funds to buy pins only as traders and really don't have much time for trading either, but when I come across pins I don't need for my own collection, the idea of trading sounds great! Congrats on that great set of Robin Hood pins!

Both. Absolutely both.

I collect what I like, it's a fair amount. But I also trade quite a bit. I buy traders specifically to trade for things I need to complete my set or other traders. But when I buy traders I try to keep the cost as low as possible.

I love love love trading! I love the people I meet and the friendships I've made-- some in person, a lot online. My sister calls me a "pin matchmaker" as I know the wants of all my favorite pin friends and am constantly looking to trade for their pins as well as mine so that I can trade with my friends. If people are kind hearted and nice I will always try to make a trade work even if they don't have anything I'm looking for as I know what it's like when you *really* want a pin and the person won't trade with you.
I do have to admit that in the last year or so I've been really disappointed in the focus on pin dollar value. I feel like people are constantly focusing on how much their pin is "worth" and the worst is when they approach me at an event with an iPad or phone in hand looking up every pin I have on eBay to see if it's a "good" trade. I have stopped trading with those people bc it turns into a business negotiation rather than a pin trade for FUN. Pins are my HOBBY. To me a good trade is when both people are getting the pins they want and leave happy. I prefer to figure that out intuitively via the pin's origin, LE size, and character popularity. I have zero interest in trading with ppl who think they are going to make money off pins. No one gets rich off pin trading-- if anything it makes us poor! So the last year+ has made me appreciate my pin friends even more for our shared love of pins and collecting and trading and generosity with one another.

I focus on collecting but trading keeps the fun in it. There is a certain satisfaction in being able to get a pin to someone who really needs/wants it. About half of my wants list are for hopefully to pass on someone else, and maybe even get me a little shiny pin that I don't have to buy. So yes and yes

I think the purpose of trading is to grow your collection! :3 That's how I see it anyway, I do really love trading that's really the main reason I like the hobby so much! I get to meet great people while trading, and I've made lots of new friends doing so! When you buy a pin on EBay, what do you get a piece of metal? I do regularly purchase LK pins on Ebay, but I mostly trade for them. I do enjoy collecting, but I don't think I could ever have one without the other! :3

@Kiragigi Yes, I absolutely hate when people whip out their phones during a trade. I have lots of "black listed" traders at DLR who take so much fun out of my new hobby. So I've made a new rule anytime someone pulls out their phones and goes to EBay I close my pin book and say "No Thank you". I've had lots of people apologize to me because they know how angry it makes me, and probably because after they check the going price they realize they were getting a good deal.



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For us it is more the pin trading part. It took me a long time to figure out that the little pieces of metal are nice, but it is the people you meet and the friends you get that are the real treasures of this hobby. We rarely add stuff to our collections, but I have to feed my trading habit so 95% of the time I am trading for pins to use in our traders. We have made friends all over the world and that is the fun part. I love opening packages and seeing new treasures to trade. My name is David and I am a pin trading addict. :rock:

I mostly collect now. I don't make it to many trading events... except Sir Grail Slayers here in So Cal... but I enjoy trading when I can.


I have been known to take out my phone during a trade to go to pinpics to learn more about a pin during a trade... but never ebay.

It's both for me but I'm fairly new to the pin trading community. When I went to Florida in October last year I was strict with myself and agreed with my partner that I would only get Cheshire Cat and Lion King pins while he collected Star Wars and Kingdom Hearts pins. We bought a few mystery pin boxes and if we got a pin that we weren't particularly fussed about we would trade it.

Back home it's difficult as there doesn't seem to be many people in the UK to trade with (or I haven't come across them yet). So I tend to collect more than trade. I will buy pins from the online store and from a few good friends.

I'm more for the collecting. I usually only buy one of whatever pin I'm looking at so I don't have much left for trading. Plus I haven't had much success on trading via pin pics or in person. I've come across some sharks at Epcot and I refuse to play that game. The few trades I've done here though, have been wonderful, which keeps hope alive for trading.

I don't think I would have gotten into this hobby if I didn't plan on collecting, but the trading aspect can be really fun, too. As fun as it can be to purchase a long sought-after pin, there's no better feeling than finding something that fits perfectly with someone else's collection. That said, I am one of the few (or many?) who uses eBay values and such to assist in making fair trades, not because I want to take the joy out of trading, but just because I've invested a lot of $$ in my traders, and, on the flip side, don't want to shortchange someone who might have something significantly more valuable. It's an imperfect system, and I'm sure that the more time I spend trading, the easier it will be to make a fair trade without having to double-check everything first.

It's definitely both for us.

Living in Europe we don't have easy access to a lot of great launches overseas, so I try and buy pins to trade for those releases. But I also just have a weak spot for pins and come across too many I like, both old and new ;-) I also love helping people out with their collections! I love trading a lot - I have made great pin friends over the past half year. I definitely agree with David, it's the (good) people that make it so fun. After seeing it suggested here on the forum I now have a notebook that I keep all of the notes in that came with pin mail. I also really like the process of trading and making fun pin mail packages. As a kid I used to love snail mailing with pen pals, I guess I kind of took that hobby and combined it with my love for pin trading ;-) And of course, the pins make it fun too! I love our display and we often look at them, rearrange them and just enjoy them.

Collecting for me. We've actually got our collections framed and hanging up at our house, and only a small handful of traders, which are just the pins that we've somehow or other accumulated over time from Disney Movie Club, failed collections, trades for things I didn't really want because someone did really want the pin I had, and that sort of thing.

I'm actually kinda' looking to liquidate my traders anyways, since they're just a waste of space at this point. Because I don't take trading seriously (or the idea of pins being some kind of economic investment), I don't do much of it... Nobody online wants what I have, even if their PinPics says they do. The last two times I've been to the parks, I only traded with castmembers. There isn't any pin trading community where I live, that I know of, either. I should really just put up a post on the forum here to get rid of them once and for all.

I'm more of a collector, BUT I would like to do some trading as well. As I only have two official Disney pins at the moment that I don't want to trade (the others are those little Hot Topic buttons), this might change in the future.

I love to trade, but I'm mostly collecting now. My wants list has become so small and full of hard-to-come-by pins. I can't justify the expense of accumulating traders that I won't be able to trade for what I want.

I mainly collect as I don't have that many traders, and when I am buying pins I usually look for pins that I want for my personal collection rather than pins to trade.

Agree with a lot of people on here: I'm mostly a collector. I love to collect things, and I only use trading as a means of collection, although I do love a good trade. Trading is something I love to do with people who love to trade for the sake of trading - too many people are focused on value trading or what not and take it too seriously.

I'm mostly a collector. This is because a lot of the pins I'm after tend to be older ones. Newer ones pop up every once in a while but since I don't have access to new releases or the soda fountain it's easier for me to just buy the ones I want. Every once in a while I'll trade, but it's not too often since I don't tend to have the newest & hottest stuff.

I will very rarely buy traders from a third party seller, but it is different for me I guess because most of my traders I have bought for retail price myself from the UK Disney Store. Paying £9 (probably $13 or so) for a pin to trade is a good investment for me, however I don't usually buy traders for marked up values. Some of my traders are pins that I used to collect and decided to stop (I.e. Frozen) so I have bought some of them, but not initially with the intention to trade.

i will say it seems easier at this point to buy the pins I want rather than trade for them. 19/20 people I contact on PinPics never even respond- I try to always respond if it's a fair offer, even if I don't want to take someone up on it.