Why Can't Pin Collectors See the Obvious?

Not until last summer did I not know about scrappers- I found out the hard way! I was trading a pin to a cast member that I got from a nice lady I met earlier, the cast member rudely informed me that it was a scrapper and made me feel like I was a criminal for having it!!! I felt horrid, but I was able to find out which pins me and my cousin had in our collection that were scrappers.

I think the BEST thing for any of us knowledgeable traders to do is help newer traders by teaching them that scrappers DO exist! But not in such a way to discourage them from the joys of Pin trading

PixarPerils, thank you so much for helping bretu out here. You found the links really fast! Goody!!!

To add a little more, I remember snoudel telling me that he changed his mind on getting this pin from that seller, but I can't remember if he actually got it and returned it, or did not buy it at all.

Before the counterfeits of the Blue Nude Stitch Masterpiece came along, that pin never sold under $250, and the usual going price was more like $350. When you see so many going for a lot less, it has to make you wonder, but then you start to think that it is because of the bad economy, right? So sellers take advantage of this and make it sound cheap, but not cheap enough that it could be a counterfeit.

The HapaOne, I can't believe people stoop to the level that they do when it comes to pins. That is terrible!

Moondance, you are right in that we should try to teach pin collectors that scrappers do exist, but we need to also reach out to them, because they are not all lucky enough to read these posts. I think we should inform people at the parks when we meet them and anywhere else. The problem is that the fear of ruining it for them exists. So this is a tough subject when it comes to teaching new traders. Look at what happened to you. That was a very upsetting experience you went through. Personally, I do not think a cast member should be rude to a guest ever, so you should have reported that person. Sorry that you had to go through that.

People need to stop treating Cast Member lanyards as an opportunity to dump cheap traders or their junk pins in order to upgrade their collection or line their pockets. Cast Member lanyards have become pin trading's form of money laundering.

Many will say "I don't do that!", but how many can honestly say that they don't try to get cheap traders to put on the Cast Member lanyards?

Also, people keep treating the hidden Mickey pins like they are gold. This is just encorages people to want lots of cheap traders to use to get the hidden Mickey pins.

Instead of worrying about teaching others, pin traders need to stop hyping hidden Mickey pins and stop using Cast Member lanyards to launder their pins. Unless that happens, the scrapper problem will never go away.

Regarding scrappers that aren't hidden Mickey pins, it's buyer beware if you are buying from unknow sources.

This is why I don't do Cast Member lanyards and just buy real pins from Disney.

I get what you're saying, but the whole purpose of lanyards (by Disney's own admission) is to trade for a pin that you like more than the pin you have. That's part of why Disney hypes the Hidden Mickey pins and creates/puts pins on the lanyards that can only be found lanyards, and refreshes the pins on lanyards. If the pin doesn't "upgrade my collection", I wouldn't trade for it!

As a result of this, over time the more-valued pins will not remain on the lanyards and those that are not particularly valued will.

This thread was mostly to point out that sellers are still getting away with listing and selling counterfeit pins, even when they look as bad as the one referred to in the first post. It really has nothing to do with hidden mickeys or CM's and their lanyards. So I don't get how we got there. Moondance was just letting us know how they found out about scrappers.

RealPin Collector said,

Regarding scrappers that aren't hidden Mickey pins, it's buyer beware if you are buying from unknow sources.

Click to expand...

This is exactly right and my point for this thread.

As for hidden mickeys getting hyped, Unibear is right. It is Disney that always starts the hype when it comes to hidden mickeys. Trading with CM's is how many collectors became interested in pins. So this is one thing that has to be corrected and not done away with. If you do not teach people out there about scrappers, they may not have a clue that they are giving the cast members garbage. We have repeated this a lot here, but here it goes again. One cannot assume that all traders have the knowledge that we have, due to being able to read these forums or being near the parks. Many of the people giving garbage pins to the CMs may not know just how bad that is. If they do not know about the pin forums, how will they know what not to do? So teaching others is a major factor in eliminating the garbage from the CM's lanyards.

Yeah, I know people will continue to get the cheap lots and ruin it for everyone, but it is worth a try or why bother to trade with a CM at all? If this happens, the amount of collectors will not increase, and as those older collectors stop collecting, no one will be replacing them, and this hobby will soon be gone.

I just don't understand why Disney is not more aggressive with this. I mean they are now figuring out ways to stop people from re-using old mugs at their resorts but they can't shut down the fake pin dealers? They prosecute people for making Disney scented candles to sell on etsy but not the people producing and those selling hundreds of thousands of counterfeit pins? You know they HAVE to realize that every fake pin that is bought is a pin NOT bought from Disney. If I ran Disney, I would stop using the factories that continue to produce pins after the allotted run or that sell the scrappers. I mean, they KNOW who has the molds and all.

I would love to get as many of these ebay people shut down as possible. I EXTRA love the auctions where the seller takes pictures of his/her pins still in the plastic bags. Regarding people being banned from ebay and re-spawning, isn't it much more difficult to sign up as a seller on ebay than it used to be?

Hi Heather,

I am with you on this. Why doesn't Disney just threaten the factories in China by letting them know they are not going to use them if scrappers are found of future pins etc? Or why not try to sue them for copyright infringement? Maybe the law in China is not the same as here, but they have to have laws protecting the theft of someone else's patent, right? It is true, every fake pin bought from someone else is a pin not bought from Disney. I cannot understand why they do not take an active role in this issue.

They make of fortune on pins, so why not protect this money making item from being counterfeited or scrapped? How hard can it be? Like you say, they know where the molds are. Gosh, this is soooo frustrating.

I have never sold on ebay, so do not really know how difficult it is for a seller that is banned to come back again. I do know that most of the counterfeit sellers have multiple IDs and are selling from two or three different store names or IDs. They know what they are doing is wrong and are prepared to be banned, because they know their other ID store is still there.

there is sum long write ups on why Disney may or may not care about the fakes. Many ppl think that they dont care beacuse if you buy a lot of the fake pins and take them to the park....guess what... u pay to get in...u trade pins...u buy food...and u end up buying more pins....at least thats how it seems. Mayb a few ppl just buy a lot and stand in dtd and trade just what they have and never spend any doe...but i dont think so. with that said.. im sure disney more than makes back the few bucks a fam saved on the lot ( by the way...i dont like lots..and not telling ppl to get them)

If we realy want the fakes to go away and the ppl that sell them. It has to be shown to ICE/FBI that the pins are here or coming here. I read a post that sumone put up that said when they asked about the pins... the seller told them they will check with the makers in china. This dumb guy tells us he is geting the strait to him. others are not so stupid but if we all start to turn them in to the good guys. it will start to help...Dont get me wrong..it will take time.. 1st good move was the 3 ppl they got already. They had 100k pins on them..and ICE/FBI thinks that they have been doing this 8 years. So one big boy down. Bet you anything the ice.fbi want more... Good guys and bad guys are of the same blood.... its that rush and the game they like....We just have to help the good guys see there is more fun to b had.. and they will helkp us out while doing there own thing.. I think there is contact info on the thread about the 3 ppl they already got. Im sure that would b a good cop to pass info on to. sorry so wordy...i kind of get upset about the fakes. and when i say fake...i mean any not Real pin....i dont belive in scraper vs fake. if its not from disney..its not real and is a fake.. cant powder coat a turd and say its not a turd..
thanks
KT

Has anyone actually noticed that the counterfeit and scrapper got really bad when England had to turn over control of Hong Kong? The Chinese just don't care. As long as the UK had control, there wasn't such a problem with scrappers. Think about it.

Hi Margaret,

Hope you are doing well! I cannot answer whether Hong Kong has gotten worse with the scrappers after England gave up their possession of it and turned it over to China, but I can tell you that while England had possession of Hong Kong, the sellers in stores passed on 8 karat gold as 14 karat gold, fake gems as real ones, fake purses, and you name it. So they have been cheating people out of legitimate items since the beginning.

There is limited space in Hong Kong, and while they have factories there, I am not sure they deal with pins. If you look at the sellers that sell large quantities of pins from China, they are located in Mainland China, which is not Hong Kong, which leads me to believe the situation was not better in the past just because England had possession of Hong Kong.

Keep in mind that England gave up possesion of Hong Kong in 1997 and pin trading did not really start until 2000. We just had our 10th anniversary of pin trading, remember? The park sold pins before then, but not as many as they sell now, so the popularity of pins grew when pin trading began, and this gave the Chinese factories the opportunity to make even more money by making counterfeits. When they got their bright idea to cheat us, I do not know, but I do not remember seeing scrappers until 2007 or so.