Downtown Disney traders

[Esmeralda]

Has anyone found ther Traders in Downtown Disney to be *really* hard to trade with? I'm talking about the ones who sit outside the Pin Trading Store there. Not only do they have some really cool pins, they seem mighty unwilling to trade with people.

One bloke was there who had a Kala pin I really wanted to go with my Tarzan collection. I showed him all my pins and he asked for my other Tarzan one in return for her. I said to him, what would be the point in my getting Kala only to lose Tarzan? He said I didn't have any he wanted after that. My older sister, who has about 100 pins came over and looked through the pins. I showed her Kala, after which she offered to trade him. He looked through her pins and came across a rare Tarzan from DLRP which happened to be the first pin she ever traded so that was a no no. He then asked for the second pin she ever traded which was a Lilo and Stitch pin. She refused these, and told him which ones she would trade which were by no means rack pins. He refused to trade with those pins even though he clearly didn't have them.

Trading with him was extremely difficult, and we got nothing out of him which was frustrating. Pin trading is supposed to be pleasurable. He told us this Kala pin was rare and expensive. When we got back home, we checked Ebay and found her for $5 so we bought her.

[JuniorMickey]

The traders there with their large books are serious traders so that's probably why

[Esmeralda]

It didn't make trading much fun though. One guy sent me into the shop to buy a pin he wanted, and apparently some of them had been disallowed from going in the shops, as the CM thought they were difficult to trade with as well.

[Keith]

I haven't tried pin trading yet, so mine is an uninformed view... but are those people dedicated traders? presumably non-disney cms or anything..

I guess he wasn't really being any more difficult than you or your sister? perhaps that kala pin was special to him and he wasn't going to give it up easily (like your first pin etc.)

I always thought that the thing to do was to keep the pins you definitely wont trade in another album or somewhere away from the ones that you would trade.

(but like I say, I know next to nothing about it... only that I'd like to try it one day :)

[JuniorMickey]

The easiest way to trade is with CMs. The ones with the books are very serious about their trading and they're going to be difficult. It's like serious baseball card collectors. They're not going to give you a Larry Bird/Magic Johnson rookie card for a Dee Brown card

[Esmeralda]

Hmmm. Its just that this trader seemed to be trying to be awkward. He had three big books full of pins and only one Tarzan pin. He did however say that he wanted my sister's Tarzan pin because he had heard that Disney had lost the rights of Edgar Rice Burroughs to make Tarzan any more.

[Esmeralda]

I loved trading with American CM's. Mostly because I can't understand the French ones, but the Americans you can stand and have a chat with pins about.

[GoofyDuck]

I never trade with anyone at WDW except CMs. I watched once as two pin traders badgered a young boy, trying to get him to trade a rare pin that he had. His parents weren't around. I was proud of him for standing his ground, then the boy left.

I walked by the pin station at Future World at Epcot once, and a man said, "Pins! Let me see them!" Well, of course I kept walking because he wasn't acting nice (I was with my oldest DD). All of a sudden, he walks right in front of us, right in my face! How rude! I just kept going and he realized that I didn't want to deal with him, so he left us alone.

You have to be careful with some traders. Some of them have pins that aren't official Disney pins. One time I was at All-Star Trading night (I think it was ASMusic) and while my DDs were trading with the CMs, a man showed me his pins. He had a Jessica Rabbit pin collection that I'm sure Disney would never make. I'm glad that my DDs weren't around to see these pins.

I'm sure this doesn't represent all the traders at the pin stations, but you just never know who's out to scam you.

[OKWTink]

One of the first and foremost rules of any collecting is know the value of what you have, and the value of what you want to add to your collection.

GoofyDuck makes excellent points! If "private" (i.e. non CMs) traders are too difficult, then I'd steer clear. Rather like the antques shops that have grumpy owners and questionable merchandise, eh?

Know your collectible, whatever it is, deal with only reputable folks and you should be ok.

[Esmeralda]

I loved the CM's in Florida, they were all so friendly and nice. We all agreed that the man was a complete ...ahem...nasty person.