Pin Trading
Hades Pin
Pin trading or how to spend more money!
Pin trading in the Walt Disney World parks is available to everyone. In all the shops you can buy pins of your favourite characters, rides or resorts. There are special edition and limited release pins for avid collectors and Blind pin boxes where you can potentially complete a set if you buy enough boxes.
If you are new to pin trading you can buy a starter lanyard and pin set for about $30 plus tax. This will give you a lanyard to display your pins and 4 pins to start trading with.
Remember you don’t have to trade pins if you don’t want to. You can display them on your lanyard and if someone asks to trade you can politely say “No thank you”.
If you do want to trade pins, say your brought a couple of blind pin boxes and ended up with doubles, you can head to nearly any shop on property and they will have a pin board.
There are also pin trading locations on the park maps.
You are allowed to swap a maximum of 2 pins at a time.
So have a look at the board if you see a pin you would like, ask the cast member if you can swap.
They will remove the pin you would like from the board, you place your pin on the table (keeping the pin back) and then you pick up your new pin. It’s that’s easy.
Pin trading is a great way to complete a set. As you explore the resorts and parks remember to ask to see a board in stores if they aren’t on display. Some stores also offer blind boxes. You will be presented with the choice of a number of boxes and you can then choose either to swap with that pin or it goes back into the box.
An Official Disney Pin back
If a cast member is wearing a pin lanyard they may also be willing to pin trade. However this hasn’t really returned post Covid.
Remember if you are pin trading to only trade official Disney pins. Always check the back of pins you are receiving, and don’t be afraid to ask to undo a trade if you feel it isn’t an official pin.
Pin trading is a fantastic activity which doesn’t have to involve visiting the parks. We have traded with people on buses or in hotel lobby’s!
If you become an avid collector you can use software to keep track of your pins. We display our pins on cork board amongst our Disney pictures.