Pins: Use Them or Lose Them

Before the Vinylmation craze, there was a different collectible.  This one was loved by many and still is:  pins.  I have some of my own pins, and I think it would be hard to find a Disney fan who doesn't have at least one or two.  Pins can be an awesome collector's item, but you have to get past the three main road blocks that caused me to stop collecting pins.

First of all, they can get very expensive.  I collected them for a while, but the price is one of the reasons I stopped.  The pins are relatively cheap on their own, but they start to add up very quickly.  On the Disney Store website, I see that pins are currently going for roughly $9.95 and up.  Even if you only bought ten, you'd have spent over $100 once you factor in tax.  And this is assuming that you only buy the cheapest of the pins.  If you have the money to spend, however, why not go for it?

My second road block is transporting the pins.  Counting right now, I have 17 pins.  Not bad considering I didn't collect them for very long.  This is where you run into a problem, however.  How are you going to carry them around?  Many people choose to wear lanyards with their pins, but that can get tiresome.  Plus it's really annoying when it's hot.  You can leave some at home, but what if you realize later that you wanted to trade that one?  Your chance is gone.  If you don't mind carrying the pins or leaving a bunch behind, this won't affect you, but it is something to take into consideration.

Finally, there's the whole trading aspect in general.  Unlike the Vinylmation figures, which you buy in a blind box, so you're likely to trade it, I found myself not wanting to trade pins often.  I would buy the pins that I liked the most, and usually there wasn't another pin that I would want to trade it for.  Sure you can always buy a pin you don't like and hope that you'll get a good trade, but why buy the pin you don't like in the first place?  Then if you don't find a good trade, you're stuck with that pin.  A solution to this would be buying pins in bulk for a low price from somewhere like eBay.  However, this creates more problems because you have to trust that the seller is selling official Disney pins.  If they're not official, you can't trade them.  And you're out that money.

These are the three problems that I had with pin collecting, but I do realize that these issues don't affect everyone.  Overall, I prefer the pin collecting phenomenon over the Vinylmation one, and I think they're a great thing for some people to collect.  I'm just not one of those people.   To a very small extent, however, I even continue collecting a bit, occasionally buying a pin or two that I like.  Always remember, however, if you're like me and suddenly stop collecting, you may have a bunch of pins in your house with nowhere to go.  So, like I said in the title, use them or lose them.

What do you think?  Do you collect pins?  Are you like me, and you've stopped collecting?  Or do you not collect at all?  Let me know in a comment, a tweet (@discollegeblog), or on Facebook!