QUESTION What in the world is going on with valuations?

[seanashbrook]

The earlier sales were likely fake/influencer sales.

How does that process work? Do they use difference accounts to buy their own item, and then cancel the sale? If yes, wouldn't ebay get alerted to too many cancelled sales? Do they keep the sale and eat the 18? percent fees ebay charges? I am asking too many questions!

 

[hopemax]

Apparently, if a seller lists a pin for $1K. And a buyer puts the pin on a Watchlist. The seller can offer the buyer a price of $1. But it will look like it sold for the $1K not $1 in basic sold / completed searches.

 

[TheMickeyMouseRules]

How does that process work? Do they use difference accounts to buy their own item, and then cancel the sale? If yes, wouldn't ebay get alerted to too many cancelled sales? Do they keep the sale and eat the 18? percent fees ebay charges? I am asking too many questions!

If a reseller can game the martket by cancelling sales and make hundreds of extra $$ on pin sales. I think they would eat a few 18% charges as the cost of doing business. But truly I have no clue how this would work, I just use my logic checks and critical thinking skills to know that $100 for a HD 'D' that was selling for $12 two months go is suspect.

Hopemax has an interesting observation also. I have made best offers that have been accepted and in the sold data the listing does not reflect that the item sold for less (with a best offer). The sold data only shows the item sold at the list price. That is a problem for any 'sold' data on eBay.

I have no idea for any other platforms.

 

[Ajk]

Correct - Auctions sold on a best offer don't show the BO price in regular search so that's a very good way of doing it. HOWEVER, if you have an eBay seller account, you are able to see the actual sale price (and go back 3 years). That's how the $1 sales came to light. So sad (or maybe happy depending on your view) to say, the sales I was showing are legit. Unless the sellers are eating the ebay fees which is certainly possible.

But I'm starting to really think we just have a Tulips/Dot Com situation with a major bubble being driven by an influx of newbies (and maybe not-so-newbies) with FOMO watching TikTok influencers. It happens.

 

[seanashbrook]

driven by an influx of newbies (and maybe not-so-newbies) with FOMO

Not disagreeing. Just amazed there are an influx of new purchasers. This is a bad economy. There are like, five percent of Americans who have money to spend on these collectibles. (I am amazed I spent so much on Niftie Fifties, but I live a boring life.) If the resellers can make it work in this environment, they are quite adept. I guess Disney people are always motivated to find money for Disney needs!

 

[Ajk]

I guess Disney people are always motivated to find money for Disney needs!

That's it right there.

 

[Connies_Hobby]

The 2020 chaser pins are still insane. The initial offerings for the 2024 pins went crazy until the supply outpaced the demand. The 2025 pins are going nuts because the supply chain has been temporarily disrupted.

Yep!

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[Connies_Hobby]

Unbelievable

I'm seeing these at the park, trading tables. I'll admit, not as much recently, as a few months back, or last year. I wasn't having any difficulty trading for them. And they were Authentic.

HD's / DM's / CM refreshers, etc., have Always been popular. We all know that.

They always ebb and flow. It's the (and I have added a new term to my Disney pin trading vocabulary) "replicas" ... That are the problem.

eBay is just, frustrating at best. As a source of valuing pins.



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[dznycrzyfmly]

Part of the problem as to why so many of these listings are unbelievably high is due to a few select collectors who make it their mission to get as many as possible for display purposes. I follow a few folks on Instagram that made it there mission to collect 101 Lucky Ds bc of the movie and others have chosen Pooh making this series almost impossible to collect if you don’t have any for trade. I regret not buying a few of the most recent packs to try and pull the D series myself as I am collecting those so I’ve been kinda coveting what I do have for trade in search of the missing Ds. The search has been… interesting so far.

 

[Ach West]

There are like, five percent of Americans who have money to spend on these collectibles.

What's really sad is that a lot of people buy who buy things at these prices don't have the money for collectibles. No pin is worth going into debt for. . . .

Part of the problem as to why so many of these listings are unbelievably high is due to a few select collectors who make it their mission to get as many as possible for display purposes.

. . . I did not know people did that with pins.
I've heard of people 'army building' things like action figures, or Lego mini figures, before, but why would you want multiples of the exact same pin. . . ?

 

[Wenzel]

If yall think this is bad. You should see the 30+ yr olds stalking the lady that stocks Pokemon cards at Target- strictly so they can hoard and resell them. Then I get the privilege of telling 9yr olds and their parents that we're sold out but they can go on ebay and buy the same pack for $200+. Wanting to make a couple bucks to fuel the hobby is one thing but buying with the sole goal of price gouging real collectors/fans is something else entirely.

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[Ach West]

Yeah . . . I love Pokémon, & used to very casually collect the cards - just picking up a pack or two while out shopping to cheer myself up if I'd been having a bad day. Never being able to do so because the cards had been popularized as a get-rich-quick scheme made me give it up.

 

[firechief18]

Unfortunately, that thought has prevailed for decades. Sometimes you just have to wait them out. That's one of the reasons Disney is limiting pins to two per person/transaction because some people were running in and clearing the entire stock, then reselling at exorbitant prices.

 

[Ach West]

I ended up switching to collect Neopets cards (to go with my collection of Neopets pins), which just had a revival last year! Lovely fun art, nowhere near the amount of toxic interest as Pokémon, & I can buy a full booster box directly from the manufacturer . . . but I'm getting off topic.
Hopefully no one buys pins at these prices, & this year's Hidden Mickeys get a big restock soon - or better yet; multiple frequent restocks.

 

[Jabberwocky]

The current D's aren't valued anywhere near the older ones at their current spiked prices. But that's probably because the current hidden mickeys are around now on lanyards and boards.

But collecting multiples of the same pin is very popular at DL where people wear their collections on their backpacks.

I've collected multiples of some fave pins but never ones of high value.

 

[TheMickeyMouseRules]

Collecting multiples of favorites is pretty common. I have not collected multiples of the Ds, but the Moana themed Hidden Disney sets that came out years ago are still at the top of my favorites and I trade for them when I see them. I don't know if the multiple collectors are any more of an issue than the in general popularity of a given character. Pooh is pretty popular, so the Pooh D is going to be popular. Supply and demand.

 

[Mcgilligan]

I have multiple pins of two varieties: 1) it fits two or more collections such as Coffee and Mystery 2) They are traders I bought at a great price (looking at you black and white Wolverine)

 

[hopemax]

The only pins I've duplicated are Chandu from Tokyo DisneySea. So many of his pins are the game prize pins, and I collect all of those, and want to have all of them together. So I needed a 2nd one to fill out a display with the handful of non-game prize pins.