The Origins of Disney Pin Trading
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.ย. 2024
- If you’ve been to a Disney park in the last 20 years, odds are you’ve come across the seemingly endless amount of Disney pins that are sold, collected, and traded on a daily basis. Pin trading has become almost a staple of the Disney park experience. Today we’re going to explore the origins of Disney Pin trading, and to do that we have to go back over 120 years!
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Pin trading would naturally continue on to the 1998 Olympic games in Nagano, Japan, and that’s where members of Disney would take note of the lucrative and popular hobby. They were planning for a 15-month long Millennium celebration in Walt Disney World. They decided that bringing the custom over to their parks would be a fun way to create keepsakes, encourage guests from around the world to meet and interact with one another, and of course make some money.
Now Disney pins as a concept had already existed at this point. Like I said earlier, pins in general made for good souvenirs, and so Disney pins in one form or another could be found as far back as the 1950’s in Disneyland. They just weren’t especially popular or unpopular up until that point, and there certainly weren’t as many as there are today.
When the celebration began in October of 1999, the official pin trading stations were limited to 7 areas across the parks. The entire pin trading concept itself was meant to only run as long as the celebration, and was initially planned to end after 15 months. Merchandising spokesman Steven Miller said “We really had no idea whether people would be interested in this.”
Well spoiler alert: People were definitely interested in it. Just as it did at the Olympics over the previous 20 years, pin collecting and trading exploded at Disney World. It tapped into all the same psychological reasons that drive people to collect stamps and coins and anything else you can think of. People take pride in building a collection. They feel satisfaction of out obtaining a complete set. They socialize and experience a camaraderie with fellow collectors and traders. Take all of that, and add on decades and decades of characters that are beloved staples of modern media, and it’s really no surprise that it caught on like wildfire and still continues to this day.
More cast members were given pins for trading, and within the year the number of pin trading stations expanded from that initial 7 locations to over 30. On top of that, during the 15 month millennium celebration, Disney was introducing new pin designs every single day.
While they never officially disclosed any sales figures, Walt Disney World Director of Merchandise, Brand Management, and Special Events, Linda Conrad, went on the record to say that Disney pin sales “made up a substantial part of the millennium revenues.” So as you’d expect, Disney quickly decided to extend the program indefinitely and also went on to expand the merchandise to Disneyland and their other resorts.
Today the hobby is still going strong and there are over 100,000 Disney pin designs. They not only include pins that guests are able to purchase online and at the parks, but also limited edition pins, cast member pins, and event pins. There are countless websites dedicated to collecting, trading, and cataloging the pins. There are even meetups, not just at the Disney Parks, but across the globe, where collectors can show off their pins and trade with one another. Every day as many as 20,000 cast members at Disney World wear pins so that they could trade with guests. Today It would be impossible to go a full day at the Disney parks without coming across the pins. They are a fun and exciting aspect of a Disney vacation, and it all began with these little cardboard badges in 1896.
My grandma was looking at pins for me, and she said she bought a Pokémon one since I like Pokémon too. (It was stitch)
3:11 Winning that gold medal on a BROKEN FREAKIN' NECK
A fun little “side quest” I do at the parks is buy a pin and keep trading as many times as I could with the CMs. Great video!
My daughter did that with the LEGO people at Legoland.
Great bit of history. I've tried to limit myself to just Muppet pins... but sometimes I can't pass up a really rad pin.
Funny you should post this today, tomorrow a new Muppet Vision Piece of History Pin LE 1500 pin drops and I've been researching pins all morning. haha
Disney Dan Check out my “Lightspeed Brothers “ channel! It’s new and I will be putting movie, video games, and Disney content!
Where exactly are the Piece of History pins sold??
WHAT. THERE ARE MUPPET POH PINS?!?!?!?! Dude... I f*cking LOVE Jim Henson. WHERE do I go for this?!?!?!?!
These are fun to collect. It's also a "hoot" to watch kids come up to cast members ready to "trade" Who said kids won't put down there "phones" and enjoy life! I actually also wear a "Goofy's Kitchen " button at work (in a restaurant in Houston) When it's a Disney on Ice event going on, I wear it and the kids really smile. My favorite is the Magic Behind our Steam Trains Tour pin from WDW. Tomorrow is Donald Duck day (guess what I will wear to work) LOL
I took the train tour and the tour guide jokingly said you get the tour free but you have to buy the pin. They also gave name tags with the train on it so I wore my the whole day.
Why, I even bought one myself, don’t you know. I remember like it was yesterday. I was at the pin store on BVS at DCA. There it was: Rapunzel holding a floating lamp and admiring it. I had to have it. So, I bought it, & even wore it a couple of times too hoping that it’d give me good luck. Well, it never did. But, the pin still holds a special place in my heart bc I love how things turned out for her in the end of that movie and wish my life would metaphorically turn out like hers did. I ended up selling the pin along with some other items a couple of years later. But, when Rob Plays does a wonderful video like this, the warm memories that come along with that pin come flooding my heart and soul.
This is such a lovely video - it made me look at my collection again, and remember how much I love my pins and how many memories they hold.
The concept of pin trading at the Olympics was so popular that it was frequently copied by other international competitions. One of these was Odyssey of the Mind, which is a kind of problem-solving competition for schoolchildren. It was founded in the late 70s/early 80s when pin trading first started to take off, so it used them from the beginning.
I bring this up because when I was ten, I was a competitor at the 1998 OM World Finals at the Wide World of Sports complex. Every US state and nation competing had their own pin set. I've got no way of verifying this, but it's possible that this was the first time pins were traded at a Disney park.
I’m addicted to these things! Literally that’s the only thing I buy in the parks now. My collection is mostly Mickey, Marvel, Star Wars/Indiana Jones, and movies I like.
There's another thing that likely went into this. There is a creative problem solving competition called Odyssey of the Mind (initially Olympics of the Mind). At their international championship, they encourage olympic-like pin trading. In 1998, the international championship occurred at Disney World's Wide World of Sports Complex. Apparently Disney officials saw how popular it was there, and wanted to cash in.
In 1998, the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals were in WDW. Pin trading is a big part of that organization, which they also adopted from the Olympics. The pin trading that OotM brought over to WDW that year was also a big factor into WDW picking up on the trend.
My dad was telling me about the history of pin trading when it all started. He had a friend who gave him the "pin that started it all" for pin trading, the first pin designed for the Olympics. I haven't seen it yet, but I can't wait to see, it must be worth a lot.
First time I’m actually early.... Ever. ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: “Good for you”
250G - Good for You!
My favorite thing on Wednesday’s! Thank you Rob!
Amazing how huge and popular it is now!
My little boys have really gotten into trading pins. It is really fun and relatively inexpensive way to experience some enjoyment in the parks!
I remember in 2011 I collected the Club Penguin pins with my brother. Also I found out my grandfather used to collect Disney pins before he passed and one of the things that found its way to my house was his old pins.
Wow!! What a Great video! I was researching to do a similar video for my first Disney History!!!! I am a pin trader and live the Epcot pins! I have the one on the thumb nail!
I was there for the first week of pin trading at WDW on a family vacation. I still have a bunch of pins from that trip, including a misprinted Aristocats pin I bought on Main St.
I would have loved to see the pin boards back in 99 nowadays it's all fakes lol
They were pretty cool in that they were just regular characters. There were no hidden mickeys, no blind bags, no sets, and like you said, no fakes. But those fakes simply showed the biggest problem, and that was that the pins are too obscure, not of a character or event.
The sad thing is, while I was only pin trading now, I wasn’t then. I couldn’t understand the point. You were buying these pins yourself, meaning they were something you wanted in the first place. Why trade away something you wanted? They would sometimes give you free pins to entice you to trade, typically when you booked your trip through their WDW travel company. One of those pins was a special millennium celebration “celebrate the future hand in hand” pin. They could frequently be found on pin trading lanyards because that was what you were supposed to do with them. I chose to keep mine because it was a pretty nice pin as is. I kept all my free pins.
The other issue with pin trading I had was time. Cast members had actual binders full of legitimate pins to trade, but this was my only day at that one park. If I’m waiting on a family member, sure, but time was just too important to waste looking at other people’s pins.
Today I will quickly glance at a CM lanyard to see if they have anything of value, they never do. I let my daughter do the trading. I have been to the parks enough time now that I can be a bit more casual. And traders tend to come up to me. I don’t seek them out.
One thing to think about though, during the millennium celebration, all the new pins were marked with their 2oOo logo. There were no “official pin trading” logos, or mickey backers. All pins from 1999 and older just had copyright Disney on them. So years later, you could trade pins and end up with a legitimate Disney pin, bought at that park, but not “official” like all those fakes you see.
After watching this video I ordered one of the Soviet Olympic pins from Etsy because I love the design!
Amazing video! I personally can't take a trip anymore without buying and trading pins- it has become a hobby for my entire family and I love hearing about the history.
I have said it before but I will say it again, I love the research you do for these Rob, and you have an excellent delivery style. Great work.
Thanks!
Hey! Just learned that McDonalds is going to have Incredibles toys!!! I’m there right now, and they’re already using the packaging! I’m excited because they haven’t had Disney toys in over a decade! I think this topic would make a great video - Disney’s history with McDonalds, through movie promos, park and anniversary promos, and even McDonalds being sold all over the parks.
I’m glad you mentioned the Olympic pin trading - that is a HUGE deal. Didn’t realize it went that far back, though!
2:48. Puerto Rico boxer vs. USA boxer. I'm from Puerto Rico and it feels great to see this. Thanks Rob.
I've started collecting pins after a couple years now and I cannot tell you how much I enjoy collecting them. I don't trade because I fear that I might get duped.
By 1987, students from around the world were trading pins at the international thespian festival in Indiana. I picked up pins from a bunch of different states and even Canada and Australia. The concept was new to me at the time, so I didn’t bother to keep track of them in the following years.
Unfortunately my nephew lost a bunch of pins when he left them on the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland a few summers ago. They were valuable so whoever found them didn’t turn them in.
I collect whatever pins I like, but my main collections are "Nightmare Before Christmas", "Haunted Mansion", "Figment & Dreamfinder", "Carousel of Progress", "The Country Bear Jamboree" and "Great Movie Ride". I do not yet have any Haunted Mansion pins, but someday!!! I at least have Haunted Mansion crossover tee shirts featuring my favorite cartoon, "Beetlejuice: The Animated Series" AND the Jim Shore Hatbox Ghost figurine...
you forgot to mention the more recent history, like how fake/scrapper pins almost killed pin trading, and the even more recent popularity of fantasy pins
When I was growing up, my dad used to collect pins so it was especially neat when Disney started to create their own pins. Now I too collect pins and not just from Disney but anywhere I go.
The nostalgia is exploding out of this video. I remember my youth seeing some of these pins.
I never traded pins but I have a haunted mansion pin with chip and Dale and then a splash mountain one with Mickey, Donald and goofy lol! Those are my 2 fav rides at the parks! 😍
I don't do the Disney ones but I love pin trading at festivals and conventions. Mine are mostly music and cartoon related.
Great video! I always forget how new Disney pin trading is! I bought my first pins around 2001. I was only 11 (maybe 10 actually) at the time, so I had no idea it was a new thing, I just got the pins I thought were pretty as a souvenir. I still have all those pins I bought from 2001-2004 as a kid, as well as the collection I built up as an adult. I like to try and trade in the parks (though fake pins make that hard) but I've distanced myself from the pin collector scene because it's so dismal. Just a bunch of people taking advantage of their proximity to the park and exploiting it for profit.
GREAT VIDEO!
I've always wanted to make a bunch of really high-quality bootleg pins of other company's IPs and quietly trade them at the parks. Imagine a pin of Bugs Bunny wearing a pair of mouse ears. Or Scooby Doo in front of the Haunted Mansion.
This was a really great little mini docu!
After seeing them at Disney World (2014) and didn't get any pin, when I was at Disneyland Paris I started collecting. Now I have to go back and trade in the States. Pretty tough for an Australian but it's worth it for Disney.
Great video as always Rob I'm a huge collector who is going in August to Epcot for a Disney Pin event so I enjoyed the history behind my obsession 😀
I started pin trading my last visit and it’s so fun!
well this explains why i don't remember pins being everywhere as a kid, but see them all over as an adult... i may or may not have all the SW weekend 2014 pins...
my fav kind of pins are the hidden mickey Epcot logo ones, and the 25th anniversary Epcot ones that have Figment
3:11 WITH A BROKEN FRIGGIN NECK
The opening ceremony for Squaw Valley was also organised by Walt Disney himself.
Thank you so much now I must do my little dance lol
KILLARACER34 this is the greatest TH-cam comment
As always a great video! I remember that on my first visit to Disney World I bought a starter kit for pins! They are irresistible! ❤️
The only pin I've ever gotten from the park was a Star Tours pin that I got in the late 90s. I have no idea whatever happened to it, but I wish I still had it.
I was at the '96 Olympics and the trading of pins was so big. I was 8 and I collected alot! They didn't cost anything though. Wish I still had them.
The MouSeekers ever see the Simpsons episode where Lisa got addicted to Olympic pin collecting? It’s hilarious!
I wouldn't normally consider myself as a collector but collecting the pins is one of the best parts about our family vacation to wdw
Rob, I am brand new to your channel as of about 3 minutes ago. :) Just wanted to give you kudos on your well-researched videos! Super informative and a nice departure from the usual Disney history videos one would find on TH-cam.
Thanks for the kind words and welcome to the channel!
Rob, will you please consider a video or series of videos on the topic of how W.E.D. Enterprises functioned *as a business*? How did they generate revenue? How has that changed over time? How did they grow the business into what it is today? What is the *business* story of W.E.D. (not the history that we all know so well)? Would love to see your treatment of this topic. Thanks for your consideration.
I'm currently buying bulk disney pins just for pin trading for a big family cruise later this year. 😂 That disney fever must be on the global brain.
Great video! I love pin trading. Such a fun hobby.
I love your videos Rob! I’m a history buff, and Disney history is even better. Thanks for doin what you do!
I’m not into pins but really enjoyed this history lesson. Thanks!
Rob, you continue to crush it! Thanks!
$10 for a single pin not including tax. That's kinda crazy.
They’re crazzzyyy expensive to me! I’m not a pin collector, sounds like a super expensive hobby to me
That's the main reason I haven't started pin collecting. I can add ten vhs tapes to my collection for the cost of one pin.
It's easy to find cheaper pin sets on Etsy. Many sellers will offer cheaper sets for larger purchases. I think the cheapest I've seen is $3
Not all pins are $10. Some are more but some are less. If you're interested you can start off with a starter pack and trade with cast members. I also go every year and every year I get a new pin and trade one. My collection has added up pretty quickly. Or find some pins online or at your local antique store for way less. Though it's more likely those pins will be fake. Some people don't mind but you don't get your money's worth sometimes. That can happen with pin trading too.
Dang, now I have to wait a week for the next vid.
Wow, I never knew this was a trend. Once again Rob, I've learned something new from you
Such an interesting video, thank you!
Because I don't have a great deal of disposable income, I've bought only pins that I REALLY liked and the idea of trading them, though I hear about it happening, had never happened with me.
I am so glad I nvr started or bought them for my kids. When spending so much money to get in the gate & how busy we are, I just can’t see getting involved. I’d rather collect 1-2 magnets each trip.
Awesome video I've been waiting for something like this
Thank you so much for sharing your videos. They are wonderful and so informative!
I started with hockey pins, playing different teams and trading.. have some old Olympic pins too Rob, but I love Disney pins the most.
And they were hard to carry even more than the pins, but I loved vinylmation mickeys, and I really wish they would bring them back. Different subject matter all on a mickey consistently different. And expensive. and kozik. I'm sure they made tons
I have a 2000 Disney pin. I always wondered why I didn’t have pins from earlier and now it makes sense
Thank you sooo much I’ve been waiting so long for this video so long!!!!!
It's sort of a tradition for me to buy a new pin every year I go to Disneyland and trade at least one of my older ones. It seems like now the only pins that really strike my fancy are the ones in the parks, not so much the ones cast members have, especially since most of those tend to be fake. But that's what my older pins are for, lol.
Anyways I'm usually on the lookout for lesser known character pins like this Emperor's New Groove one and Pleakley pin I bought last year! Or the Iago one I found a few years back.
The pins prices hurts me deeply. When I first went I was able to buy only three.
Disneyland had a pin series in 1985 for each of the lands for the 30th anniversary year. They were hotly traded.
In fact, I have the full set including the rare Tomorrowland pin which had a sharp point on the depicted rocket which was reissued to a rounded point.
From that point on, pin trading at DL was a thing.
lohphat I think they were given out. My family received Tomorrowland pins in 1986, but they had the rounded tipped rocket. It is my first Disney pin. I wore it on my back pack, when I went back to DL this year. 32 years later, and me and the pin finally returned.
I recently went to WDW, and I have to say, I really didn't see any pins. Maybe due to corona it was suspended?
That was very interesting. Great job on the video Rob!
I am wondering how we ended up trading stickers here in Hong Kong. During my last visit to Hong Kong Disneyland. I saw people were interested in asking cast members for stickers/stamps and exchange them with other cast members😂😂
I kept getting little thrills when I saw a pin I had on my pinboard!! yin yang mickey, and a star wars...
Lee Cockerell mentioned on his podcast one time it was something like 100 million a year in sales. Don't know if that was across all resorts or just WDW.
And I thought my hobbies were mini-money sinks. Thanks for the vid!!! :)
I love my pins and I have only traded twice. I've spent about well over $300. Every single trip I make to Orlando, I have to get a pin.
My very first Disney pin was given to me at Disneyland in 1986. It was a Tomorrowland pin with astronaut Donald and a rocket. I would get pins every WDW visit because they were like only $6 then. Travel companies started giving them out, but I remember one year having to claim one of the pins at a resort hotel gift shop. It was a 2000 pin and came with a blank cm-wide lanyard. A cast member who gave them out explained how pin trading worked, and I saw that same 2000 pin throughout the parks as people traded at the pin spots with their free pin. I however kept mine, because it was the perfect millennium celebration souvenir. That, and despite 1999 and 2001, there were no Class of 2000 pins made by Disney. Not even a Y2K variant.
Anyway, all the 2000 release pins had the 2000 Disney logo on the back, while the official logo started appearing in 2001. Around that time I couldn’t understand the hobby of pin trading. Time at the parks was limited, and you paid good money for pins you wanted, otherwise you wouldn’t’ve bought it. Why would you trade that? This was before mystery blind box/bag sets, or hidden Mickey CM sets. So I now understand why people do it. I started displaying my collection on a lanyard and backpack a few years ago, and despite the weight, I love it! It gets CM and park guests a way to interact with you like I’ve never experienced before. Just remember to buy locking backs!
It was also because of Odyssey of the Mind trading at nationals held at Disneyworld.
I've only visited Disney World once, but I love the pins I picked up when I was there! I have two Haunted Mansion pins, a Tower of Terror pin and a Disney Wonder pin (that was the cruise ship I was on). I wish I had gotten a Pirates of the Caribbean pin though!
Thanks for the wonderful video Rob!
I got one in 2000 and just noticed recently it says "limited edition of 7500" its of mickey in a train that actually lights up
I guess from the old night time parade
This is an ironic video considering that last week when I decided that a nearly simple Baymax pin I looked to get was actually 13.99, I am giving up buying pins. I started April 2000 when I found them as I was a Boy Scout and pins were a badge of honor of your rank and camps you went to. My pins were favorite attractions I did, the parks and the hotels I stayed at for the longest time as well as the celebration going on when I went. These were my coaster credits in a way and early on I wore them on a hat similar to Boy Scout pins, back when the pins were metal backing and not rubber like they have been since about 2005. As of my last two trips to Disneyland, I find that it isn't worth it any more.I have 2000 and 2001 pins to about 2013/14 (not including ones I've traded for) but honestly besides traders, I'll likely not gonna pin collect anymore. I haven't bought any new pins since about 2013/4 at all and only get free DVC pins or ones I traded to get.
I'm with you. I bought my first pins back in 2001, I was only 11 at the time so I had no idea that pin trading was brand new at that point! I find trading for pins fun, it is rare that I will outright buy a pin. If I see a pin I want I prefer to hunt for it and try and find it on a cast lanyard/board in the parks. However, the overwhelming influx of scrappers on cast lanyards that Disney seems to do nothing about is ruining the fun of that too.
whossoul the scrapper have long been a problem and often the guests are the problem. I worked on the college program and pin traded as a cast member and remember at the time, the cutie pins were the then scrapper pins. I think many don't know the rules of pin trading and this includes cast members. Technically, you can't get a pin you already have on your lanyard already from a trader, yet I would often see people trade one of the pins I had on the lanyard already for a staff pin such as the monorail pins. And to an extent you as a cast member can't deny a trade, even if that is the case. You also had to give the Disney Mickey backing if they had a traditional brass backing (like the originals) or the standard black rubber backing. The pins also had to be official Disney pins with the Pin Trading logo, though again this was often overlooked for guest ease. Hopefully in the cases where you had two of the same, you just find another cast member who has pins you don't have and doesn't have the double pin you do. I do also know that on most days you could swap some of the scrubber pins out for the special trader pins that then would be gone within an hour, or three of swapping them out.
What were those original 7 locations that sold Disney pins at the parks? Are they still open today?
talking about survey markers last time at Fort Wilderness they had a survey marker placed in the parking area and it was a Mickey silhouette I so wanted to pull that thing up have you ever seen one on property?
Great video Rob! Thanks! Now I know why I collect them :D
Love your channel so much!
Thanks!
I went to Disney in early 2017,and barely any people had pins. I ended up doing most if not all of the pin trading with cast members.
I’m really not sure you’re right here... I first visited Disney world back in about 1995... pin trading was definitely very much a thing.
If you want I can pass along my sources for the topic for more details if you're interested. Given the popularity of Olympic pin trading I wouldn't be surprised if some guests we're practicing it on their own prior, but in the official capacity with the stations and Disney promotion it didn't begin until 1999.
Something sparks Disney to do something, then Disney does it, then other theme parks catch on
Holy smokes----you've done it again...
I’ve been collecting pins since I was 7. I don’t know how I got started.
I have 2 pins I believe are limited edition collectors pins.
If I find them Ill take a pic and show u
There’s an unspoken rule in the Parks that if a guest asks a cast member to trade for a pin, the cast member must make the trade.
Another great video Rob!
Fascinating video! Good work!
Nice Epcot 30th anniversary pin. I have that one also. Was lucky enough to be working there at the time.
I got a fancy schmancy 35th anniversary one last year. This time I had to buy it though. I think it was nearly 35 dollars. Worth it! Lol.
I loved this so much ... huge pin collector here 😁
Love your videos Rob!
Thanks!