Countdown to Disney

I do all my shopping on Ebay and Amazon. I haven’t bought any pins really since the 90’s when it wasn’t cool yet. Maybe 1 here or there but most of mine are all over 20 years old.

Pretty simple. If it is too cheap to be true, it probably is. If someone was trying to sell any item at 90% less than what the actual retail is, and doing on a scale of thousands of units… it should be a giant red flag, for any item. No different than handbags, sunglasses, or any other item that is counterfeited and sold at a ridiculously cheap price. Anyone can tell you something is real, doesn’t mean that it is. Cast members are a) instructed to not cause an issue with the guests, b) do not really have time to inspect pins, and c) lack knowledge on identifying fakes…Would you not question the authenticity of a brand-new Coach handbag being sold at $25 when it should be $250? So how are the pins different? The difference here is kinda an ignorance is bliss and a “I’m only trading it away” thought process.

Differences between real and fake (or “scrappers”) include: color variation, rough edges, uneven paint, incorrect backstamp, incorrect back color, incorrect back pattern, wrong size, wrong number of “nubs” by the pin post… just to name a few. And the manufacturers are getting better at making the counterfeit items.

Even knowing what to look for, after getting home I’m stuck throwing away a handful pins each trip, because closer inspection reveals they are not real. Then I am out the legit pins I had traded away. It has really sapped the fun out of an activity I once loved.

There are resources on the net to investigate more, for those who wish to learn. Just google “disney pin scrappers” or “how to spot fake disney pins” or visit http://www.pinpics.com

Thanks @ridisneypinguy for all the information and resources. I appreciate your time. I never thought of them as something that would be faked like an expensive handbag. I know I’ll be looking around the house for some of the boys tonight to take a look. Thanks again

Happy to! That is part of the trading community is to educate people about pins… The good, bad, and indifferent.

Here is the thing with why it is so popular, they are small, cheap, and easy. Floats under the radar. Takes big operations to amount to enough money to make it worth pursuing, and even then… hard to prove. Many times they use the same exact molds that produced the real pins! A mold that is either past the usable life or slightly incorrect “grows legs” and finds its way to another plant, where it is copied and used to make the fakes. Which partially explains why some of the defects are what they are.