Pin Trading Night- Our Experiance

[Lilminx]

I really struggled to find information on the Disneyland Pairs Pin Trading nights that happen. So thought I’d do a little write up of my experience.

Generally they happen on the last Friday of the month in one of the hotels unless there is a pin trading day that month then it won’t happen.

So it was just me and DD who is 10 that went down Thursday to Sunday (I won’t bore you with the travel details).

The June PTN happened this time in Hotel New York on the Friday. It says on the posters from 6pm this isn’t entirely true and if you turned up at 6pm wanting pins you’d be very disappointed.

You need to arrive at the hotel for around 12noon to start queuing to collect your coloured wrist band. This wrist band guarantees you a set of pins from the night. After you have your wrist band you are free to do whatever you want. The room is set up with lots of tables and chairs. Many of the ‘pros’ use a few tables to display their books. There is a cash bar that you can buy drinks and snacks from set up. If you bought the special 8e non-alcoholic cocktail you got a free pin this time it was Mrs Potts. I didn’t know this until a lovely Belgium couple told us.

wristband

room

My DD collects Daisy Duck pins so we hung around and looked at all the ‘pro traders’ pin collections. I have to say we were in our element! It was pin geeks galore! I was a little nervous how we would be received by the ‘pros’ as they all seemed to know each other but the whole experience was lovely. Everyone we talked to was super friendly. We met a lovely couple from Belgium and a few girls from Holland. Everyone was super polite to my daughter who had her pin display bag and really complimented her on it.

DD bag


Now down to the trading… we are by no means pro traders. We have been trading only 2 years but if you come to an event like this invest in good pins. I got a good lot of pins from a reputable seller on eBay. These pins where a mix of Limited Release and Limited Edition pins and the traders were happy to trade for them. Pins such as hidden Mickeys are generally not received well here. Look at it this way you have £2 and want me to give you my £10 it’s not going to happen. I had to explain this to DD when we first started trading to make her realise the value of pins. I’m pleased to say DD got 10 new Daisy pins to add to her collection on the night and a couple of freebies from some lovely people.

Daisy pins


We left the event to grab some dinner and returned for around 4pm as DD was hooked on the event.

If you do leave the event be sure to return for around 5pm. From around 5.30 they show you the pins that are released that night. As the man came out with the pins there was a lot of excited people and screaming. Of course I had no idea what was going on. But there was a Jumbo pin release. I am told they happen very rarely so we seemed to hit the jackpot! As well as this Jumbo pin there was the standard 3 pin release. These pins all follow a theme and this realise was The Incredibles the jumbo pin was Stitch.

pin release

From 6pm they draw out the coloured wrist bands. First was white. Everyone with a white band goes up and can buy one full set of pins. You don’t have to buy the full set if you don’t wish to. Next was orange so up we went and so on until all the colours are drawn and everyone has their pins. Annual Pass discount is accepted at this event.

While in the queue to buy the pins you get to pick out a raffle ticket. These tickets are drawn at the end and if your ticket is pulled out you can buy extra sets of pins if there are any left. We didn’t stay until the end so we gave ours to a practically nice French trader.

I want to add that we have a Green Pass (priority pass) these do not work at the event. You must wait until your coloured band is called and queue. But DD was so engrossed in looking at peoples pins she managed well. And that folks is a PTN at DLP. If you have any questions please feel free to ask and I will try and answer them

[EJSakaAnna]

I've never heard of these, thank you for sharing! Sounds like your DD had a brilliant time