What's your favorite pin?

I love seeing the photos of pins! Much cheaper than actually buying them.

This is another super jumbo pin that has a case almost as impressive as the pin itself..... almost! As someone who collects theme park icon pin, this is the definitive, iconic pin. Almost all the icons of the Magic Kingdom is in this pin.

This is the wooden (yes, it is REAL wood) case that contains the jumbo pin.

And when you open it, this is what you see. I put a quarter at the top right corner so that you can have a sense of scale on how big this thing is.

This is a close up of the pin.

This is a pin on pin on pin on pin. There are movable parts. For example, astronaut Minnie can spin.

As with the Glamorous 30s pin set, this pin is also currently on display on one of my shelves.

Zz.

ZapperZ, how long ago was that pin made?

The pin was released in 2006. And yes, the retro feel to it is a major factor to its attractiveness.

Zz.

Totally!

Yeah that case is killer. I'd probably buy lots of things if they just put them in that case.

Those are just amazing, Zapperz. I am SO enjoying "walking through your pin case" with you.

So, where/how do you get extravagant pins like that? Does Disney sell them somewhere on property, or are they only at pin conventions?

My favorite pins are from Disneyland's 50th celebration. I collected the whole set & it features a lot of Disneyland's attractions but in a very colorful, vintage 50's, cartoony way. I LOVE THEM! (It's not the SHAG set btw, this was a different one)

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Life without a vacation countdown is like a cupcake with no frosting!

The one advantage of being around big cities like Chicago is that you eventually find a group of people that have the same hobbies that you have. A few years ago, I was introduced to the Windy City Pin Traders organization. This is a group of Disney pin traders around the Chicagoland area that meet once a month to do pin trading. For many of us who could not go to a Disney theme parks as often as we want, meeting other pin traders and other Disney fans is some sort like a "support group"! We get to trade pins, and talk about Disney. But more than anything else, it is a social event in which we just like to be around each other since we all share a common love of Disney.

It is at these events that I get many of my trades, including the last two pins or pin sets that you saw here. We also get people now and then from Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan (our mailing list has more than 100 persons). So we get many new people and they have with them a wide collection of pins. Tom Tombush, who wrote the definitive Disney Pins catalog, is also on our list, and he visits our monthly pin meet whenever he's in town.

Not only that, we continue to get new members all the time. So all of this produces a large number of pins for trading each month. So I inevitably always find things to trade for.

Zz.

After going for the large, expensive super jumbo pins, I know go to the other extreme end of the scale. Just because it is small and cheap doesn't mean that it can't be one of my most favorite, and that is the case here.

These are actually cast lanyard pins. If you know about them, you know that Disney doesn't spend that much design time on them. These pins are produced for cast members to wear on their lanyard, and it used to be that the only way to get them is to trade for them with a cast member. Obviously, that practice has somewhat changed recently when Disney started to sell them certain lanyard pins to the public, but what the hey...

In any case, the design of these pins then to be simplistic. This is true for this set of cast lanyard pins, except that the THEME made them one of my favorite. These are, of course, the hitchhiking ghosts. I'm guessing that they were released as cast lanyard pins slightly more than a year ago. I had a heck of a time trying to get all three, and I don't think all three were released at the same time, so that made it even more frustrating to collect.

I have several complete sets of these pins, and I wear a set on my shirt during Halloween. They may be small, cheap, and primitive in design, but they are one of my favorites.

Zz.

That's so cool to wear them at Halloween.

If I may ask, what are SHAG pins?

I had someone buy me pins at the recent O-pin House pin release at Disneyland. The theme of course, was the Haunted Mansion. While I got several, these two pins are my most favorite. The one on the right is the passholder pin.

During the same day of the O-pin House pin release, they also released this set of open edition pins of the stretching room poster, but with our lovable Disney characters. I love these pins!

Zz.

Those stretching room ones with the Disney characters are great!

OK, this is really bad. I have an Excel file that is an inventory of all the pins I have and all the pins I "want"...well my want list is up to 271!!! Dang!!!

I've gotten obsessed with the alphabet pins...not the HM a-z pins but the ones that spell out words...like Disneyland, Walt Disney World, Imagineering etc. This is SO bad...my chances of completing those sets in my lifetime are near ZERO!! Oh well, I guess it's kind of like collecting baseball cards, you always have the ones you really WANT and hope to find.

Open Edition means it is not limited edition, i.e. there's limited number of this pin. It doesn't mean it will never run out. It just means that they have a lot of this pin that they don't have an LE number for it.

So if you know of anyone either going to DL, or living there, he/she can get these pins for you!

Zz.

They don't/won't sell them in WDW?

There are many pins that are exclusive only to certain parks. The O-pin House event was at DL, and so these pins can only be found there.

Zz.

This was the first framed set that I ever bought. It was from the 2005 Happiest Pin Celebration on Earth pin event. I bought it because it was a picture of Walt, of course, but also because all the pins are of the characters "interacting" with him. Pluto looks like he's sitting on the shelf, and Mickey is resting on Walt's shoulder. It also shows Walt in his younger days as an animator.

This frame set is on a "permanent" display on the wall, right next to all my framed pins.

Zz.

PS ZapperZ, I was on twitter talking about your wooden case for that pin and pretty much everyone agreed that was the coolest pin case ever.

In terms of design, this might not fall into anything special. However, based on what I remember, this was the first mystery tin set that Disney has offered at WDW.

This was from the 20056 It All Started With Walt pin event. The mystery tin set consists of 4 randomly selected pins. The pins make up a complete set consisting of 10 distinct and LE pins. But the "torture" here was that, the pins do not all have the same LE number. In this collection, Pluto had the smallest LE of only 200, Goofy being next smallest, etc... The largest were 1200, which includes Mickey, Minnie, etc.

Now keep in mind, there were 1200 attendees to the event, so you KNOW that there will be many people who would not be able to make the complete set, even if everyone who attended did not buy the tin set.

From what I remember, at the end of the first day, the Pluto pin was going for $60 on ebay!

There's a long story to tell about this pin collection. But I'll compress it down by saying that by the end of the event, we managed to get not one, but two complete sets of this mystery pins. I felt kinda bad because there were people going around looking for Pluto or Stitch or Goofy to complete their first set, and we were sitting on two complete ones. But it was a matter of luck that we got two plutos, and that allowed us to go for two complete sets, either by buying more of the mystery tins, or by trading.

We still have two complete sets as of today, but we are now considering selling one set.

Zz.

Last week, at our WCPT monthly pin meet, I finally got one of my "holy grail" of pins and completed a set that I've been trying to complete for the past 2 years!!!

It was such a joy, and a relief! It is a collection of "stamps", each representing the country at World Showcase. I had ALL the countries for the longest times, except that I was missing Japan and China. The hunt for these two pins took 2 years, and a lot of false hope and wrong turns. I almost got China at this last MoP pin event this past June, but the couple, after keeping me waiting back and forth for 1 1/2 hours, decided NOT to trade that pin for what I had. So that was only the latest setback and disappointments in trying to really complete this set.

But when you have friends who really look out for you (many of my close friends in the WCPT group were aware that I was looking for these two pins), you get a lot of help. A friend went to Dayton, OH to attend the Disneyana convention, and lo and behold, someone she knew had those two pins. So she traded for them and then brought them back for us to trade with her. So now, I have the COMPLETE SET that seem to have taken forever to complete!!!

This is the pin set.

I collect complete sets, and Epcot is my most favorite park, so this set is like a must-have double coupon!

This set is now safely framed with a few other complete sets.

I'm trying to see if I can start another large Epcot World Showcase set so that I can boot off the castle set to another frame and make this frame as being exclusive to World Showcase set.

And yes, I am giddy. I know that it is only pins, and these are really trivial in the scheme of things. But when you've wanted something for so long, and had tried many times to get it and come very close a few times, finally achieving your goal is such a joy!

Zz.

Amazing! Those are so beautiful. And I love that you've arranged them in the order you find them at the World Showcase.

I also really like those Figment pins. How long ago were those released?

Finally, I think I have one of those castle/stained glass pins!

I normally don't do "princessey" stuff, but with the Castles, I had to collect them because they are "park icons", which is one of the themes that I collect. Besides, they are gorgeous pins!

I forgot when those figment pins were released. Next time I open the frame, I'll look. Again, I normally don't collect Figment stuff, but since the theme is associated with World Showcase, I decided to collect the whole set. I'm glad I did since the set was actually quite good.

It really is a "torture" collecting a set covering the countries of World Showcase, because there's so many pins to complete the whole set (11). I know of at least another set which I don't even have one pin out of the set, mainly because I'm too "scared" to start. It is a difficult set of pins to get since it was from quite a while back, and I am almost convinced that I won't be able to get the whole thing. So I'm not even going to try. Still, if I want to have a frame that's exclusive to World Showcase, I will have to start some time. I'm hoping that Disney will release a NEW set of World Showcase-themed pins!

Zz.

What's the one set that you don't even have one out of? Maybe I have one that we can trade and I can start you out!

Oh no! You are not going to get me started on that one! Oh no! No, no, no, no!

Zz.