Pinny Pal took advantage of me?

Rathanon

So I kind of feel taken advantage of today, please feel free to chime in with a "yep, you got jacked" or a "no that seems legit" response so I can gauge the pain. So I was at the front of the line for staff pin trading @ PAX South today and there were a lot of Pinny Pals around me talking about everything pins of course. People seemed very friendly and I even heard the occasional "that deal is more in my/your favor let's talk" so I felt pretty safe. I had nothing but extras with me so I wasn't attached to much but I did bring 1 DSB pin to trade. Now I know it's rare but I had never traded before and know jack about value relative or not. As we were about to trade with staff people around me were trading and I had my pins out on my lanyard and the guy behind me saw my DSB and asked what I would be willing to trade for it.

Again I know it's rare but past that no clue so I said "Probably some limited editions I don't know" and he proceeded to show me what he had. Long story short (too late) he offered me a 2015 PAX Prime Polygon and a 2016 PAX East Polygon and I said sure. In my head I thought two LEs for a pin was good but I noticed his hand was shaking pretty bad (wasn't before) when he started to hand over the pins and even though I noticed I felt I had to go through with the trade and no one around me was saying it was a bad trade (they were for many other trades around me).

Fast forward to now I find pinmash and checked the rankings and now feel pretty down for my trade and kinda feel ripped off. Was it because everyone around me were Pinny Pals and they knew each other but not the new guy so why not get a steal of a trade. Maybe it was a good trade and I just don't know enough about what I got in return to know it. I could use some outside input please, thanks for taking the time to read.

fishfishmonkeyhat

To be honest I don't think that's a terrible trade.

While DSB's are pretty rare in the actual blind boxes I don't think they're impossible to trade for these days. His shaking could have just been because he was excited to actually find someone willing to trade him for one, but who knows.

I mean, your DSB was a spare, right? If not I could see why you might think you were ripped off.

You can never really tell what someone else's intentions are, but 2 LE's for a spare DSB isn't the worse thing in the world, especially if you just helped someone fill a hole in their collection.

thx42

To put things in a monetary equation, the last Blind Merch sold on eBay for $59. The last Prime 15 Poly sold for $39, and the last East 16 went for $16. So I would say that it's at least in the same ballpark.

Personally, I would probably value the DSB Merch more than those other 2 pins, but it's possible someone else would have the opposite view.

Most people don't spend huge amounts of time studying and understanding pin values, even if they have been doing it for a long time. The correlation between pin mash and trade value is actually very tenuous. For instance, Gold Overwatch is ranked 5, and Kitty Kemper is ranked 6, but they are nowhere near each other, value wise.

pvp_panda

I agree with THX. Popularity and value are correlated but there are other factors. The DSB is probably one of the smaller print run pins but I've found that far more people are interested in trading for my Polygon pins than my spare DSB.

I would say that the value of DSB is trending downwards while Polygons are trending up. 2 years ago I traded my spare leeroy Jenkins for a DSB. Pin values are far from static

Sammy.Sam

I just wanted to chime in and say that I agree with all of the above statements, these are all valid points. I'm on the fence about which is the "better" part of that trade; while I do agree with Thx about the trade value of the Blind Merch being higher, I think the show LEs have a larger audience of collectors and will be more desirable in the long run, as pvp panda points out.

The Blind Merch is technically rarer by current distribution count than both of those show LEs, but it's a less known and less desired Pin outside of super hardcore collectors. This is similar to a pin like say, The Next Level which had a print run of 1k. There are technically fewer than any of the show LEs but you will be hard pressed to find anyone who values The Next Level anywhere close to the value of any of them.

And as Fish points out, there are many reasons someone's hands may shake - tremors due to medical condition, excitement, they're cold. Just because he was excited to find a Blind Merch for trade doesn't mean it would necessarily trade for more than he was offering you.

Ayefkay

Also wanted to say I agree with everyones statements. DSB'S, while originally were pretty rare, only finding them in very few double secret boxes, are now fairly easy to trade for, while polygon pins increase in value and rarity with each passing year.

And don't forget, pin values are relative to each person. Regarding your trade specifically, I think it was pretty fair.

darkinfero

I agree the trade was pretty fair I would've taken it.
Everyone is different on pin values.
If you have any questions please ask another pin pal about value. We can confirm if the trade is good or bad.
I know I always ask people just in case.

Jake Capps

Sounds like a fair trade. After the DSB Boxes debacle of 2015 I didn't think the Blind Merch pin was rare any more? PA was sending people doubles in the mail.

Rathanon

Thank you all for the thoughts, I feel better hearing from more people that it was a fair trade.