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What makes a "Holy Grail" really special?

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What makes a "Holy Grail" really special?
TopDog

TopDog

My Grail of all Grails
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Are your Holy Grails just plain old pins or are they very limited and would cost a pretty penny to get them?

Personally I have a few expensive ones and then I have some plain pins that just really look cool.

I consider something a "Holy Grail", if it is something I would have to work for in order to get. If I see ton's of the pin for sale then I really would not make it a grail.

How about you guys?
 
Even is a pin is cheap/readily available but I absolutely fall in love with it, I still consider it a grail. I probably wouldn't put it in my signature or anything, but I'd probably still refer to it as a grail in my mind. However, my 'main' grails are usually the more expensive/not as readily available ones. These ones I'd probably put in my signature as they'd take me a couple of months to get.
 
There isnt really any 1 definition towards what makes someone pick a pin as a grail. I myself consider grails to be a pi n that is hard to trade for and isnt highly available or even it is highly available but costs alot of money would make it a grail for me.

you often see a quite a few of the pins I used to be looking for on ebay and they were just a bit to expensive lol so even if they are alot available it could be price that determines if it is a grail or not.
 
A lot of my most wanted pins are a pretty penny and have high trade ratios , but there are some I want really badly that should only be like $20 but have missed out on them and no one answers my trade requests. I consider those grails because they seem to elude me even though they are somewhat commonplace.

For example this one:
[pinpics]18910[/pinpics]

I love that pin so much, and yet I have never gotten a response from pinpics for the past 3 years. I have offered LE250s with higher stats than it and still nothing. And I have not seen it on the bay either. That is a grail because I haev wanted it for so long and sent out many requests and can't seem to get it.
 
To me, a grail is something that really grabs my attention and "speaks" to me and is relatively hard to obtain. By " speaks" to me, I mean that it has a personal meaning for me, like anything with Walt, Fort Wilderness and WDW in general. A grail is a highly personal pin that brings back memories. My HG is the super jumbo It All Started With Walt. The first thine I saw it, it practically jumped off the screen at me!
 
HG for me, on the most basic level, means hard to get, no matter what the pin (like a math problem: HG=Holy Grail=Hard to Get). Hard to get because they're sold out/expensive, or old and maybe not necessarily unique (like a rack pin) but one I want, but because it's been out so long everyone already has it in their collection and hardly anyone's trading or selling, etc.

Last year I really lucked out on some pins I could say I didn't even *know* were HGs for me (because I never had any hope I'd get them, so I wasn't ever actively trying to get them, in my head they were more like "wish list" pins, "good luck with ever getting those in your lifetime")--some very good friends were paring their collection down and I got this particular group of pins. They weren't in demand by others, because compared to other pins, not that many people even *knew* about them. So I was really excited to get them (and in their original boxes!), and I definitely consider them HG pins.
 
HG pins for me are ones that I need to complete my collection, are very, VERY hard to get and are unique. I have some grails that I have been wanting for over 5 years and have had no luck at all in even finding someone who has the pins. They are primarily very old pins and from Japan to boot so I'm just hopeful that someday they will find their way into my collection.
 
Not to be a spoiled brat..but what makes my grail pins "really" special is when there is only ONE in known exisitance and I have to beg, barter and eat Top Ramen for a year to get it.
 
An HG pin is something that seems impossible to get...and that there is a very good chance I may never even see one in my lifetime!

HGs may be low LE or they may be older pins that just don't seem to be available 'for trade' or 'for sale' over long periods of time. My first HG is in my signature and took well over a year to find. After a few more years, I was able to complete the entire 'Day of Beauty' set. My second HG I found a few months ago....after well over 5 years of searching - and, while I didn't resort to Top Ramen, it was a very expensive pin...and happy to share it was completely worth the wait!

Happy Trading :wavey:
 
TiggerNut said:
Not to be a spoiled brat..but what makes my grail pins "really" special is when there is only ONE in known exisitance and I have to beg, barter and eat Top Ramen for a year to get it.
Click to expand...


are there many pins that have only one known in existance ??? My son has the pin of mickey wearing a shirt with walt on the front. It was a CM exclusive and was pulled back and not sold any more because of fakes... i like that pin cuz its not a LE but its a pull back and no way to know how many real pins are around.

Please give numbers of pins that only one is around or real low number.. Oh and i do not mean stuff made at WDI or frame stuff that there was never more of... i mean real pins that were around and now have seen to go away??

thank you
 
This is a big grail for many people. It was open edition, but is super-hard to find. It also sells for hundreds of dollars.
 
Holy grail to me is a pin that is a slim-to-none-chance-of-obtaining. Occasionally, slim-chance comes through with a BANG, and OMG-you-are-alast-in-my-pin-bag thrill! :)
 
Before I begin, let me just say that this is all just my personal opinion. The use of the term "Holy Grail is completely subjective. Different collectors use the term for different situations, and that is okay. :)

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Well, the story goes that the Holy Grail was/is a cup that Jesus drank out of at the last supper (the night before he was killed). It is one of the most highly-searched-for items in history/mythology.

So the term "Holy Grail", in the world of pin collecting, is meant to represent a pin that is very special, and that you are searching for very hard, and is not easy to come by.

The term CAN also refer to the rareity of the pin, as there was only ONE cup from which Jesus drank. Which is why it is so very hard to find (if you believe it exists at all). Although many collectors, such as myself, do not require a low LE size in order to assign the term "Holy Grail" to a pin.

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This pin was my Holy Grail for two years:
Pin 69046: DisneyShopping.com - 3-Pc. Pixar Shorts Pin Set For The Birds Only
pin69046


That bird there in the middle of the pin is my favorite Pixar character of all time. (You will note that I have a picture of him as my DPF avatar.)

I searched for this pin for about two years before I finally found it for sale on ebay. It was around $20, if I remember correctly, so it wasn't a very pricey pin overall. But to me it is priceless. I would've paid a LOT more for it, if that had been the asking price. But the seller didn't know that he had someone's grail on his hands.

This is exactly why we say that value is subjective. It varies, depending on what any given buyer is willing to pay for it at that time. And many times, this is based on an emotional attachment.

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Then there is this pin:
Pin 55819: DisneyShopping.com - Pixar Group (Jumbo)
pin55819

This pin was never my Holy Grail. I know many people would have thought that it would be, because it is so rare and valueable. And I DID really want the pin. I knew that as a Pixar collector, it would be the centerpiece of my collection, because it has over 20 Pixar characters from 7 different Pixar movies. I just never thought of it as a grail. I did obtain the pin. I traded two legs and an arm for it, which was fair market value, and I'm glad I did. I knew that my collection would always be incomplete without it.

.

Another thing you should know about the term "Holy Grail" is that some people use it more liberally than others. I personally have only ever assigned the term to two pins: the "For the Birds" pin which I listed above, and my current HG. Other than those two pins, if there is a pin that I want desperately, I refer to it as a "Most Wanted". I keep a pinpics group of my "Most Wanteds", which lists a couple of pins for each Pixar movie. This way, when I do use the term "Holy Grail", people know that I really mean it. Note that it includes the word "holy", which in my opinion, means that it is not a term to be just thrown around on whatever's hot right now.
 
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