Pins, Pins, and More Pins #1: So, You Want to Collect Disney Pins?

PPP #1: 6/2/25 — So, You Want to Collect Disney Pins?

On our first family trip to Disney World, I bought three pins: one Food & Wine Festival pin, one Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party pin, and the Emperor’s New Groove Supporting Cast pin. I thought the idea of commemorating each trip with a couple of pins would be a fun way to look back on our memories one day… and then I started to learn more about pin trading. The more I learned about the world of pins beyond just what you can buy in the park displays the more interested I became! 

Now, 1.5 years later, I am by no means an expert but I am much much deeper into the world of Disney Pin Trading than I ever thought existed. And while I have become invested in learning all about Tuesday drops, Adorbs, DSSH, DEC, AP/PP, and so much more, I think that my overall reason for collecting pins has remained the same: I am collecting on trips to look back on memories, and in between trips I’m collecting pins of my favorite movies/characters in the vast pin trading communities on social media and WhatNot.

If you’ve also caught the pin trading bug and, like me, realized that there is a mountain of information that you didn’t know about this fun hobby of ours, here’s 5 things to help get your journey started:

1. You can be a casual collector! First and foremost, please don’t mistake any of this as required reading before you buy a pin from the parks on your next trip. Pins are FUN, and you can get a ton of enjoyment from simply buying pins when you’re at the parks because you like them. Display them at home if you’d like, collect & trade as much or as little as you’d like, and don’t worry about all of this other stuff! 

2. Pin Trading is a social activity. Trading collectibles in general is a great way to find like-minded people. If you’re interested in trading pins with your fellow Disney pin enthusiasts, there are plenty of ways to do it! There are pin traders at Epcot with huge portfolios of pins that welcome you to look through and offer up trades — my wife and I enjoy stopping by and looking for each other’s favorite characters or finding missing pins from sets we are trying to complete. There are also pin trading meet ups organized by guests on Disney Cruises; join your cruise’s Facebook group to take part in these, or just bring your pins on board and keep an eye out for others/cast members with their pins for trade. You can also often find pin trading events in your local community, where someone has coordinated renting out a banquet hall or other meeting place and you can bring your pins or purchase table space to display what you have available during the event. Basically, if this interests you, you have a lot of options to choose from! 

3. Learn to avoid fakes/scrappers. Unfortunately, like any hobby, there is an unsavory side to pin collecting. Fake pins are an ever-present issue, and you can almost guarantee that you’ll see fake pins on the trade boards that cast members have at the parks and resorts. There are so many fake pins in circulation because you can find them for next to nothing in bulk lots on eBay, Amazon, Etsy, etc. (if the deal looks too good to be true, it probably is). I made this mistake when I first started trading on a Disney Cruise, and wish I had been more proactive about learning how to avoid fakes/scrappers. There are a ton of amazing people in this hobby who will help identify real vs fake, and there isn’t always a clear cut answer, but if you want a good place to start I’d suggest the videos that GoPinPro post on their Instagram.

4. On Tuesdays We Get New Pins: If you are a Disney World rope drop warrior and you notice that the queue is oddly packed for a random Tuesday, it’s because you are being joined by pin collectors who will be making a beeline not for their favorite rides, but for the pin kiosks in the park. Disney releases brand new limited release/limited edition pins that disappear almost as quickly as they are stocked every Tuesday throughout the year. Some Tuesdays are more exciting than others, but if you’re on the hunt for the newest pins then you’ll have to get in line with the troves of other collectors that set their alarms early on Tuesdays. A limited quantity is also made available on the Disney Store website online at 11am Eastern.

5. Not all pins are collected equally. Another thing that Disney Pin Trading shares with other hobbies is that there are certain unique factors that make some pins more desirable than others. Here are a few examples of why some pins stand out as more coveted/valuable other than the popularity of the subjects on the pin: 

• • Limited production: many pins that are available in the parks are “open edition,” or OE, meaning that Disney will continue to make more if they run out of stock until the design is retired. Other pins are labeled “Limited Release” or LR; these are pins that are often produced for a certain event or holiday and then production will cease. And others are “Limited Edition” (LE) with a defined production run (ex: LE300 = only 300 of that pin exist in the world).
  • Chasers: some sets do not release every pin at the same quantity; the pin design in that set that is the rarest is called a “chaser” and is more valuable than any of the other pins in that set. You can identify the chaser in sets
    
     released in the parks or online one pin at a time by the LE production run being cut in half (or more) for the chaser of that set. If you find yourself opening mystery pin boxes/pouches, this will be when the chaser pins are hardest to identify as they often do not have a special notation on the back. For these mystery sets, you’ll have to look on the box or on websites like Disney Pin Blog to find out which design is the chaser.
    
  • Limited access to purchase: anyone with a park ticket can buy Disney pins in person. You can find some of them on Disney’s website, and you can even find them outside the parks at Disney Springs. But some pins are only made available for purchase at ticketed events (holiday parties, D23, or Disney’s hosted Pin Trading events). Others can only be purchased by cast members (WDI/MOG — Walt Disney Imagineering/Mickey’s of Glendale; DEC — Disney Employee Center), and others are only sold in extremely small quantities at an ice cream shop that will only ship to California addresses (DSF — Disney Soda Fountain aka DSSH — Disney Studio Store Hollywood). These pins may have a similar LE quantity as others, but the added allure of being exclusive makes them more valuable to collectors in some cases.
  • Production source not all licensed Disney pins are made by Disney. Some examples of other companies that produce licensed (and tradable) pins include Loungefly, Hot Topic, Pink a la Mode, Artland, Hallmark, and even Old Navy. Artland is one that stands out among this group for their beautiful designs and quality craftsmanship; they are UK-based and produce limited edition pins that are expensive to purchase at retail if you can find them before they sell out, and coveted by many collectors.
  • Dated Pins: this is one I did not think of at first, but it makes perfect sense now. If there is a year displayed on a pin, unless it is personally significant to a collector or it is historically notable for the pin's subject, pins with a year on their design are often not as desired as pins that are evergreen and do not have a date attached to them. 

This is by no means an exhaustive list of Disney pin trading knowledge. I don’t believe that exists, but if it does it was written by someone far more experienced than me. I’ve truly had an amazing time learning as much as I have since getting more into Disney pins, and there is no shortage of something new to keep the interest going if this is something that you enjoy!