Disneyland Bans Bench Use & Scrappers in New Pin Trading Etiquette
Disney has posted a new frequently asked questions page with Pin Trading etiquette at Disneyland Resort. This includes a couple of major policy changes that have long been a source of frustration for fans and diehard traders. We’ll share a rundown of the rule changes followed by our commentary.
Let’s start with the new etiquette and location guidelines for Disney Pin Trading at Disneyland Resort:
- Official Disney Pins – Only official Disney pins may be traded. The main criteria when judging whether a pin is tradable or not (although other factors may be considered) is that the metal pin bears a “©Disney” mark on the back, representing an official Disney event, place, location, character or icon. A Disneyland Resort Cast Member may determine not to trade a pin in their discretion.
- Pin Condition – Pins should be in good, undamaged, tradable condition with the pin backing attached.
- Safety – For a safe trading experience, please trade one pin at a time.
- Trading Maximum – Guests may trade a maximum of 2 pins per Cast Member or trading board, per day.
- Ask First – Please refrain from touching the pin or lanyard of a Cast Member or Guest. If you need a closer look, kindly ask the Cast Member or Guest wearing the lanyard to bring it into clearer view for you.
- Not Exchangeable for Trade – Monies, gifts, vouchers or receipts may not be exchanged or used to trade for a pin.
- Okay to Trade:
- When trading with a Cast Member, Guests should offer a pin that is not currently displayed on the Cast Member’s lanyard or trading board
- Pins from other business units of The Walt Disney Company (e.g., ABC, ESPN) may be traded, as determined by the Cast Member
- Operating participant pins that show a Disney, Disneyland Resort or Walt Disney World Resort affiliation are generally accepted for trading
- Not Okay to Trade:
- Unauthorized pins, plastic pins, rubber pins or other nonmetal pins
- Personalized name pins
- Brooch-style or clasp pins
- Disney Service Award pins, Disney Legacy Award pins, Spirit of Disneyland Resort pins, Partners in Excellence pins or Cast Member costume pins (i.e., Host/Hostess Badges, Disney Trainer)
Pin Trading Location – Guest Pin Trading, outside of the use of a lanyard, will only be permitted in Disneyland Park near Westward Ho Trading Company, as directed by a Cast Member or a sign with the exact location, from park opening to 3:00 PM daily (subject to change).
- Limit the Items You Bring – Only one trading bag, 14″L x 12″W x 6″H (36cm x 31cm x 16cm) or smaller, is permitted. Guests should only utilize a single trading bag for pin trading activities. No additional decorations or collateral (e.g., lights, signage, displays, etc.) will be permitted.
- No Use of Benches – Benches or any other structures for the display of pins will not be permitted. Benches are for seating purposes only.
- Attend to Your Items – Traders must stay with their items for the entire time they are displaying or trading.
Valid Disneyland park admission and reservation required. Park reservations are limited and not guaranteed. Disney Pin Trading guidelines are subject to change without notice. Guests suspected of abusing the guidelines may be subject to, among other things, removal from the Disneyland Resort premises.
Disneyland officials had this to say about the changes: “We regularly evaluate and adjust our policies and operations. Pin Trading is a fun, magical activity for our guests and these updated guidelines will create a designated location near Westward Ho Trading Company in Disneyland Park during specific times, which will enhance the overall guest experience at Disneyland Resort.” (Hat tip to Scott Gustin on finding these new rules and getting the statement.)
To our knowledge, this is the first time that Disney has published pin trading etiquette for either Walt Disney World or Disneyland. Although this only applies to Disneyland Resort at present, it’s safe to assume that these policies are meant to apply across the board on both coasts and Walt Disney World’s website will be updated accordingly in the near future.
The first consequential change is the effective banning of scrappers, which are basically factory seconds or production overruns. They’re the result of pins being cheaply produced in places with little respect for intellectual property law. It’s a tradeoff that Disney has knowingly made to keep production costs down–and one that they could put an end to at any time by manufacturing elsewhere. Regardless, hardcore pin traders view them as bootlegs or counterfeits, and not worthy of being added to their collections.
This has long been a source of considerable controversy, and we’ve discussed it at length in our Disney Pin Trading Tips post, which was literally just updated with (different) changes at Walt Disney World. Previously, our perspective was that Disney allowed Cast Members to trade scrappers and they are so ubiquitous that it made sense to purchase scrappers if you’re partaking in pin trading as a “just for fun” activity in the parks with your kids.
The new Disneyland pin trading rules change that. We still maintain that Disney is the party best situated to stop the problem (but has made a business decision to not move production because it would cut into profit margins), but that’s really beside the point. We will now be advising against buying scrappers, since they are clearly in violation of a plain reading of the new rules. So that’s a win for all of you diehard pin traders!
The win for everyone else is Disneyland limiting the items that pin traders bring and the hours of trading, and banning them from benches: “Benches or any other structures for the display of pins will not be permitted. Benches are for seating purposes only.”
I will happily trade an end to scrappers for a ban on bench pin trading. Few things make me more unnecessarily annoyed than how difficult it is to find a bench in Frontierland because there’s a sea of pin trading binders taking them up. It shouldn’t irritate me as much as it does…but it does…and I’m definitely not the only one. I would hazard a guess that nothing has done more to damage the opinion of pin trading in the eyes of more casual Disneyland fans than this practice. (I am not even kidding. You should see the comments in Disneyland social media circles.)
Ultimately, both of these changes are a net positive for pin trading at Disneyland and (presumably) Walt Disney World. To be abundantly clear, it’s not that I’m a fan of scrappers or think it’s a “good” thing that they exist. Rather, it’s that they have been so common on Cast Member pin trading boards and lanyards over the last decade-plus that it was futile to avoid them.
If Disney is able to clean up the lanyards and boards and only have authentic pins, that’ll be a positive for casual guests and pin traders alike. Likewise, if Disneyland bans the behaviors that are most abrasive, pin trading will gain wider acceptance in the fandom. All of this may seem insignificant from the outside, but a little bit of etiquette would go a long way in cleaning up how the hobby is perceived! Kudos to Disney for these changes.
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Your Thoughts
What do you think of Disney’s new pin trading etiquette and policy changes? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions? Hearing your feedback—even when you disagree with us—is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
They have benches?!
I am excited for these changes! Only thing I’m not happy with is them limiting the number of times you can trade with each CM/ pin board. My husband and I like to go to each pin board multiple times a day where the CM knows us after a couple hours!
In a way it will be nice to go into Frontierland in Disneyland to be able to sit on the benches. It would be nice to have an area to pin trade though. I know at Disneyland that some use the Picnic area outside the park to pintrade. And I have friends that are professionals who buy and sell pins online, and those I trust to be good. I’ve been collecting pins since the 1990’s and you used to be able to buy every pin in the park without going into deep debt. Big thing back then was buttons. And yes we have a large button collection too. I usually go into the park with duplicates of pins that I’ve bought and trade either from my one big binder or my small pinfolios. I’m in a scooter so will bring my traders with me and have never set up in Frontierland. I don’t wear a lanyard anymore due to back issues and those lanyards can be heavy on my poor neck. But I’m always willing to trade. I don’t buy scrappers, but do buy occasionally from Ebay if they are offering a pin that I want for my collections.
I would love for there to be some sort of policy that forces the cast members to leave the traded pins available to other guests instead of hiding away all of the good ones.
To enforce this there would need to be crack down on the eBay scrapper sellers as I’m pretty sure no CM – even those educated as to how to identify them – would deny a kid a trade. Hopefully they’d feel comfortable telling the rules to the many adults I’ve seen with a ziplock baggie full of a hundred pins. I am an adult pin trader that buys official pins to trade and loves this aspect of my Disney trips. It’s really frustrating when a board is 99% full of scrappers and that has been the reality for over a decade. I too just trade what appeals to me as there wouldn’t be anything to trade for if I didn’t accept scrappers. Therefore my collection is now without doubt full of unofficial Disney pins. Disney could also reduce the price of pins to encourage purchasing with the intent to trade official pins. They are so expensive now! But I’m happy to report that just lately I’ve seen more and more brand new pins on the boards (it is actually pretty easy to tell the difference just by holding one in your hand. The quality is easy to see despite the fact that both types have official stamps on the back). I think this is actually Disney releasing these pins for CMs to add to their boards to encourage trading. I’ve seen this at both parks and it makes me happy to see this new direction.
Pin trading sounds like a fun hobby, but as a non-local with finite amounts of vacation time and money to enjoy the parks (plus many other travel destinations competing with Disney trips for our time/money), every single minute in Disneyland/DCA and WDW is precious to our family. Although I am not ignorant to the concept of annual passholders, and I think my daughter did once spend a happy moment trading a pin with a CM, the idea that someone would enter the hallowed grounds of Disneyland with no other purpose but to sit on a bench and trade pins for hours truly ties my mind into knots. I know pin trading is also huge at Olympic venues but it usually happens in the plazas/parks vs. in the stadium during the Opening Ceremony or the 4×400 relay.
I’m in no way judging anyone who enjoys spending their time this way but the culture, lingo, unwritten rules, etc., are just so foreign to me, and (like hearing about locals who just sit and chill for hours in a prime Fantasmic/fireworks spot) it strikes me so profoundly how my pilgrimage site is someone else’s neighborhood hangout spot.
I would love a detail article on “how to tell if a Disney pin is a “real” pin or “scrapper”. I have literally traded a few hundred in the parks. I just picked ones I liked. How can I tell if it’s “official”?
I’m not the person to write that article–for the most part, I cannot tell the difference.
That’s in part because for a lot of pins, there likely is no difference. It’s the same factories producing the pins, or they’ve been reverse-engineered really well. I think a lot of people use “scrappers” as a synonym for unappealing pins or ones with imperfections, but that doesn’t always mean they’re scrappers. QC isn’t always the best even on authentic items.
Even my daughter has had pins stump her. She’s even shared on pin sites with people who know all the pin secrets and sometimes they can’t tell either. Rule of thumb? If it’s too good to be true? It’s a fake. That being said her and I both probably have fakes in our collections. Some we know, some we don’t. But if we like them who cares? We’ve been collecting and trading for 20 years
Here are three good videos about it…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECZoSBx-3iA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3qJPAzTQJc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rWhN5WLDiw
She has been in the pin trading community forever and also makes adorable ears.
Thank you Kristen. I watched all 3 videos. Very helpful. At least now I have a better understand of what to look for.
Scrapper pins are much shinier than authentic pins. If you hold them up to the light they reflect much more than an authentic pin. Scrapper pins usually will have dips in the enamel or you can see what look like brush strokes in the enamel. Scrapper pins are usually thinner and lighter than authentic pins. Scrapper pins will quite often have rough edges. The colors will be off or weird colors like orange skin instead of tan. The 2 nubs on either side of the post on the backside will not be as pointy as on the authentic pins. There are some things to look for when trying to tell an authentic pin from a scrapper pin. Hope this info helps!
First off Scrappers and fake pins are 2 different things. While both are not Legite pins, one it technically real while the other is not.
A Scrapper is a pin that is made on the assembly line that did not pass quality control and should have been trashed. But was salvaged feom the trash and sold by someone.
A FAKE pin is typically a copy of a real pin.
Usually fake pins have sunken soft enamel while real pins have hard enamel. Which is usually smooth and more professional looking. However some good fakes use hard enamel.
But if you seen sunken soft enamel it pretty much guaranteed FAKE.
Also. If it’s on a pin board it’s most likely fake.
There are other ways to discern pi. Authenticity. But with newer pins, the quality control is so bad now, many of those things seem moot.
Spend about 30 seconds on the Disneyland subreddit and you’ll see multiple posts with thousands of upvotes talking about the people who just hog the benches in Frontierland all day with their pins lol. It never fussed me, but if Disney puts an “official trading area” up, honestly I’d be way more likely to participate, I’ve only ever had lanyards and traded with cast members and pin boards.
Banning scrappers will be hard to enforce… ever since 5 or so years ago the official manufacturing processes look VERY similar to some of the “mid quality” scrappers – curious to see how it plays out in practice. And does this mean the end of the people that come into the park with full on body armor made out of trading pins? Does that count in this new “one item” policy? Those folks were always fun to see, even if I’d rather wear actual body armor instead of an outfit literally covered in trading pins lol
Part of the reason it’s such a hot-button issue with Disneyland regulars and locals is because of the attitudes of some of the “professional” pin traders. Putting in an “official” area likely isn’t going to change that–I’ll just leave it at that.
How funny…I have been a passholder for more than 35 years and have never even noticed benches taken over by pin traders! I guess I have just never been that interested in the pins or apparently sitting in Frontier Land! I must sleepwalk through there. lol
Total Bull Crap. These rules have ALWAYS been in place. The cast member just DO NOT enforce them. And never have.
I’ll be VERY surprised if this is actually enforced just because they are bringing attention to the already established rules.
If you can point me to these rules on DisneyWorld.com, I’d love to see them.
This rules page is brand-new on Disneyland.com as of today.
I *just* purchased $60 worth of pins on ebay for the family to trade. How on earth can I (or any other unsuspecting family) tell what are scrappers without googling each one? They all have (c)Disney on them and look exactly like all the other pins to my eye.
I would hazard a guess that 99% of people cannot tell the difference unless they have absolute bottom of the barrel scrappers.
If they meet the requirements and look legit to you, you’re probably fine.
Thanks Tom, that makes me feel better! I will just not trade (we only do pin boards) any that look chipped or damaged or whatever. Which is common courtesy anyway!
unfortunately, you probably bought fake pins. Any pins sold in bulk for less than at least $3 are junk pins. When legitimate pins cost $5 to $15 or more – who would ever sell a bulk load of pins for pennies on the dollar? they wouldnt.
I understand that, but if they are indistinguishable then I’m not throwing out $60 worth of pins.
And they are not indistinguishable. I can spot a fake pin from a mile away.
Literally EVERY SINGLE PIN in those massive ebay lots are fake. Not even scrappers. Just full on fake reproductions.
If you are buying pins in bulk for a fraction of what they cost in the parks then you are going to be getting scrapper pins. 1 pin at Disney costs $12.99 alone while a 5 pack of mystery pins costs $39.99. If you bought $60 worth of authentic pins then you would have received a little over 4 individual pins or 1 1/2 packs of the mystery pins (7 1/2 pins). If you got any more than that then you got scrapper pins. You aren’t going to find any seller able to sell authentic pins so cheaply. They don’t have an “in” with Disney to buy authentic pins for pennies. If they were authentic pins that they were selling one ebay etc. then they certainly would charge a lot more than $1 a pin. Curious why you thought the pins you bought were authentic? Didn’t the price seem to good to be true?
it’s a great move. My wife and I are not serious pin traders but when we’re at WDW we like to immerse ourselves as much as possible in the Disney culture and traditions. Going into the bubble is like visiting another country. So my wife makes Pixie Dust and we Pixie Dust people. One cast member was having a tough day and when Carolyn Pixie Dusted her you’d have thought she won the lottery. So we do some pin trading but believe scrappers unethical so to save money we buy official Disney pins at character wear house and the Disney store. If those options aren’t available to you, buying a starter set or any lanyard with 4 or more pins at least makes the cost of each pin more reasonable than one pin separately. However there are a few things we’ve observed in the Parks and resorts. Many of the CM’S can’t tell if a pin’s real or not so they couldn’t help us with pins we were interested in. We adopted the attitude that if we like the pin that’s all that matters so we exchange our real pin for it. Keep it fun. If you start dragging your wife to every pin board you pass she might depixie Dust you. Which is as painful as it sounds
Not that I have any first hand knowledge of such a thing.
This comment just made my day!
Well I think this is all positive. However, it won’t be maintained. Hopefully the bench part as a big problem at Disney (especially WDW in say August!) is lack of seating. But the counterfeit pins will still be an issue. Half the time my daughter would check a pin and then give back to the CM and let them know it wasn’t real. We NEVER met a WDW CM who knew it was a fake. Pretty much all of them were surprised and asked my daughter how she could tell. They usually just stuck back on the board though. ????? So unless Disney is going to train the CM’s, most of them don’t know what is a fake. And yes a fake usually has the Disney mark on the back. You need to look for much more than that!
My daughter works at WDW and was told to accept any pin offered as long as it was a Disney pin. A lot of Cast Members know a scrapper/fake pin from an authentic pin it’s just that they couldn’t care less because it isn’t their personal pins being traded. Disney isn’t going to stop scrapper/fake pins from being traded because it would be a big scene and cause a lot of issues. They also don’t want to move manufacturing of the pins to the U.S. because they would have to pay minimum wage at least to those workers. Instead they prefer to pay pennies for the pins and wages. They will continue to be made in China and China will continue to make scrapper/fake pins. So there you have it.
While I agree with the changes…..it makes me sad for the young kids that just want to trade pins. Also for the parents that purchased bulk for up an coming trips that will be of no use.
You can still trade pins, so long as they are on a lanyard. This only applies to setting up shop on benches using boards or albums full of pins
I read the article headline with “benches and scrappers” and realized this is a corner of the Disney universe about which I have no knowledge. 🙂 The policies seem completely reasonable.