New pins . . .

. . . make such a difference - they are sharp! 

And they are bright and shiny - I am not sure of the idiom: bright/shiny/ clean as a new pin. Does anyone else know? 
  
Pin money is an interesting phrase. In modern times it has tended to be used in a derogatory fashion, the idea of women  only working for pin money, i.e. for a little spending money. But the term was used in the 1500s to denote the household money used to buy necessities. I haven’t looked this up very much, but I doubt the term had anything to do with pins at all, certainly not dressmaking pins. 

In ‘Pride and Prejudice’ Mrs Bennet congratulates her daughter Elizabeth, newly engaged to Mr Darcy - “Oh! my sweetest Lizzy! How rich and how great you will be! What pin money, what jewels, what carriages you will have.!” The ‘pin’ here refers to a jewelled or ornamental fastener and denoted a wife’s clothing and other personal expenses. 

Then again it could refer to the fact that pins were very expensive, as they had to be made individually. The history of pin making is fascinating, as we used to make most of the pins for the world. I have a feeling that a blipper once wrote about this as they knew the place they were manufactured, but I can't remember who it was.