Scrapper Comparison: Park Icons 2011

My first attempt at buying some of the 2011 Park icon pins was not very successful. I purchased three pins (Dumbo, Castle, and Ear Hat) on ebay and received scrappers!

Scrappers are pins that were manufactured outside of the producers contract with Disney (say they make an extra 200 copies of an LE 750 pin) or that did not meet quality standards and were meant to be destroyed but were instead sold. Scrappers are lower quality and have certain characteristics. For example, the paint is often not completely filled in. The paint or metal may be the wrong color. Furthermore, the pin may have rough edges, feel too light, or have incorrect backstamp information and/or designs.


The park icon pins I received were wrong in both the metal and design colors. The park icon pins have a unique blackened metal, similar to the Sea Serpent pin from the Vinylmation Park #7 collection. However, the pins I was sent were the usual silver color.

In these photos, the authentic pins are on the left and the scrapper version is on the left. It can be hard to see the difference in the metal coloration in a photograph, but there are also other variations between the authentic pins and the scrappers. The detail is much greater in the authentic pins of the castle and of Dumbo. It is also clear that the yellow is different on the ear hat pins. The authentic pin has a bold, true yellow color, while the scrapper has a watery, almost-green yellow color. 

The backs of the pins also highlight some key differences between the two versions.

authentic

scrapper

The metal color difference much clearer on the back, but pay special attention to the area in the red box in the second photo. The scrapper version of the pin is plagued by one of the surest signs of a scrapper: the border on the Mickey head waffle pattern. See how the pattern doesn't reach all the way to the edge? It's also pretty clear that the scrapper doesn't have a real Mickey head waffle--the shape is more like a teddy bear head than a Mickey head. 

Hopefully this comparison is useful when evaluating the authenticity of a pin. Especially online, scrappers are hard to avoid, but the best tool pin collectors can have on their side is knowledge!