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Credit: Inside the MagicDisney’s always celebrating something in the Parks. Back in 1999, that something was the Millennium Celebration – a one-year event at the Walt Disney World Resort that saw the construction of Millennium Village, the addition of the divisive “Mickey wand” on Spaceship Earth, and the introduction of a new Disney tradition: Pin Trading.
Pins have been present in Disney Parks since Disneyland’s opening in 1955. Over the years, the Walt Disney Company has produced thousands of unique designs for Parks worldwide. Guests can purchase pins inspired by everything from Animal Kingdom or Tokyo DisneySea to Mickey Mouse and rarer characters, such as Robin Hood and King Triton.
Of course, the rarer they are, the more Guests want them. Over the years, parkgoers have stood in hours-long lines to secure the latest pins for their pin lanyards. For those who can’t get them at the source, diehard traders will pay hundreds of dollars for limited edition pins on eBay.
Pin Trading is a serious business, something Disney knows all too well. Since officially introducing Pin Trading to Parks in 1999, the company has held Pin Trading events across the globe. Cast Members have roamed Parks with lanyards and boards packed with tradeable pins, and other Parks have even introduced copycat systems to appeal to the Pin Trading masses.
But now Guests fear that the tradition may be coming to an end. Reddit user Isthatyourpie recently shared a post claiming that “pin trading isn’t really fun anymore” thanks to no Cast Members with lanyards and smaller pinboards with “a lot of eBay bulk pins.”
They’re not the only ones who feel like Pin Trading has changed. User PaulClarkLoadGetter noted that after Disney got rid of Cast Member pin lanyards during the pandemic, the activity just hasn’t been the same. “I traded my last pin six years ago,” they wrote. “Unless pin boards are getting cleaned out in the last few minutes, I’m pretty sure Cast Member pins are a thing of the past. Now I just drop $200 on pins like a lunatic every time I go.”
Some people feel like the habit started to fade pre-pandemic thanks to a higher proportion of low-quality pins – and even fake pins. User Phased5ek wrote:
Once the CMs started consistently having blind-box leftovers as their trading pins, it pretty much was over. A person might get lucky and spot someone who traded a decent pin away to get something, or you get people who traded some stuff away simply to be nice for someone else who comes along later, but 95% of the time, you don’t find anything good, and the CMs treat it more like an interruption than a fun interaction like they used to, unfortunately.”
Or did Pin Trading start on the road to irrelevancy decades ago? User Bch182 believes it peaked during the Millennium Celebration and has been in “a very slow decline to almost irrelevancy” ever since. In their opinion, it’s a “relic of nostalgia of better times.”
Whatever the reason for Pin Trading’s gradual decline, commenters were able to agree on one factor: the treatment of Pin Trading Cast Members. Multiple users – both Guests and past Cast Members – described incidents of Guests repeatedly tugging on the pin lanyard while still around a Cast Member’s neck, posing a serious health and safety issue for those involved.
There have been numerous incidents of Guests complaining about overzealous pin collectors disrupting the Disney Park experience for others in recent years. Pin Trading was actually banned in Tokyo Disneyland several years ago for this very reason. With this in mind, it’ll be interesting to see how this Disney tradition fares over the next few years.
Are you still actively Pin Trading? Check out our ultimate guide to Pin Trading around the Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World and find out where you can get the best pins on your next visit.