Disney "pin trading" has been a popular and low cost part of Disney parks for years but that has been slowly changing and now, it seems they are giving up.
If you enjoy pin trading on any level you will know that at one point it was EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, Magic Kingdom, and then Animal Kingdom in the ranking of trading. Now, Animal Kingdom is the best followed by Hollywood Studios and EPCOT. It isn't easy to find pins at Magic Kingdom anymore.
At EPCOT, the pin boards, which used to be full of pins, now have a handful at best. Maybe 10 pins on a board. It really doesn't make sense considering one pin comes off and another goes on its place. Almost every board at EPCOT the last four times I have been there has been void of full boards.
At Hollywood Studios, the "Big Board" is gone and according to the cast member working there, it isn't coming back. Replaced with a normal size Mickey head, pin board, the largest trading board is out. The collectors, however, are still sitting in the front atrium where the big board used to be at Sid Cahuenga's One-of-a-Kind.
Animal Kingdom has risen to the top. The boards are throughout the park and easily found which is the way it should be. Trading at Animal Kingdom has continued to get better and the boards are full of pins most of the time unlike at EPCOT. They still rarely have anything unique or different from other boards and the silver slug pins take up a lot of space on the boards.
It used to be so much fun to go board to board but now, it seems as though the parks no longer really care. There are no more cast members walking around with pin lanyards that you can trade with.
I did notice that all pins are not on the board though. When my five year old wanted to trade for a pin, he couldn't find one he liked so the cast member reached into a bag in his pocket searched through some pins, and pulled out a nice Luke Skywalker pin that he traded with my son. He put the traded pin on the board.
That was very nice of the cast member but also told me the better pins are being taken off the board in some cases. Finding rare gems, or just really cool pins is not as easy as it used to be. It was a lot of fun but it seems it isn't something that will be returning to its former level of low-cost entertainment for the family.
Magic Kingdom is similar to EPCOT if you can find the trading stations. They are spread out a little too thin and not easily found.
I was told by another pin trading guest, however, that the real trading happens at the resorts. In fact, she pointed out that every morning the pinboards are re-packed with full boards. She said that you can take the busses, monorails, or even the Skyliner and jump off at one of the resorts and find new pins every day.
While I haven't tried this yet, I do find it increasingly frustrating to visit pinboards at the parks, especially EPCOT which may as well just stop altogether. Then again, maybe that is their end plan.