Panini, an Italian company focused primarily on sports memorabilia, and, most notably, sports stickers and cards. They have been around since the early 60s. Giving sports fans around the globe a chance to celebrate their game of choice, season after season.
The Panini sticker book has become a totem of any true sports fan. A trend that never goes out of fashion, appealing to generation after generation.
However, before you dive into this new interest…you may be interested to know just how many stickers these sticker books hold.
You neither want the capacity of these books to be too thin on its feet, allowing you to complete them in a matter of days. Nor do you want it to be endless, requiring you to spend thousands of dollars to fill it out.
Let’s take a look at what you can expect from a Panini sticker album in regard to capacity.
It All Depends On The Focus Of The Sticker Album
As you might have guessed, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question of ours. Most Panini albums are tailored to either a sport, a team, a tournament, a division, a season, or all of the above.
This means that each sticker album is likely to have a slightly different capacity. Let’s take a look at some of the more recent soccer panini sticker albums as an example.
Panini Sticker Album Capacity And Soccer
Last year, Panini released (as they always do) a sticker album for the English Premier League. The top-most flight of soccer in the UK.
This division of the English soccer league is one of the most watched, celebrated, and renowned in the world. The premier league features some of the best soccer stars in the world, and some of the best team’s on the planet too.
There are 20 clubs in the Premier League, and for each of these teams, there are 29 stickers to collect. This brings us to 580 stickers, but that’s not all.
There are also 40 more stickers to collect, split into two sections: Elite Players, and Star Signings.
20 are needed to complete the first section, and, of course, another 20 will fill out the second section. Bringing our total up to 620 stickers — But the fun still isn’t over there.
Before you can call your collection complete, you’ll need to fill the two spaces for the Premier League trophy and ball, as well as the 20 spaces found on the Contents pages, which takes us to 642 overall.
Combine that with the 48 stickers for Transfer Updates, and we get the grand total of 690 stickers. That’s nothing to scoff at!
Panini sticker book for the Euro 2020
But this isn’t always the way. The Panini sticker book for the Euro 2020 tournament tells a similar, yet different story.
The European Cup invites all the best national teams in Europe to face off for continental dominance. And it is one of the most important and popular sporting events across the pond.
There are 24 teams in every European Cup, and in this particular album, each team was allotted 27 stickers, giving us an early sticker count of 648.
Then there are whole team stickers, so we can add another 24 to our total, bringing us to 672. Tally up the spaces on the “Trophy, Mascot, Logos” page, and we reach our grand total of 678.
So, although it’s not a huge difference, this is a great example of how the capacity of a Panini sticker album will fluctuate, even within the same sport.
What About Panini Sticker Albums For Other Sports?
With the team size, league size, tournament type, and season length differing between major sports. You can bet that each sport’s corresponding Panini sticker album will have a unique capacity.
For example, the 2021 – 2022 NBA Panini sticker album covers each of the 30 teams taking part (as you’d expect). Giving us a total of 480 sticker cards. 100 of which are special foil editions to add some glitz and glamor to your collection.
The latest NFL sticker album from Panini, however, requires significantly more stickers to fill the pages. 561 to be exact (plus 100 cards).
This is hardly surprising considering basketball teams are composed of only 5 players, as opposed to football’s 11, not to mention there are 32 teams competing in the NFL, two more than the NBA’s 30.
How Many Stickers Do You Need To Fill A Soccer World Cup Panini Sticker Album?
The FIFA World Cup is the most prestigious soccer tournament in the world.. So it’s hardly a surprise that Panini gets heavily involved with their sticker albums.
This tournament occurs every 4 years, with the latest one approaching quickly. So, if you’re thinking about throwing yourself into the Panini craze, now is the perfect time!
The last World Cup took place in 2018 in Russia. The corresponding Panini album arrived with spaces for a whopping 670 stickers. Split between 32 teams in the tournament (logo stickers included), the stadiums of play, home nation posters, and general logos/trophy/ball/graphics pages.
How Much Does It Cost To Fill A Panini Sticker Book?
Obviously, the cost of completing a Panini sticker album depends on how many stickers are required, the cost of a pack, and, of course, how lucky you are.
Let’s use the Euro 2020 soccer tournament example from earlier to give us an idea of how much it might cost to get from 0 stickers to a full album.
One sticker pack contained 6 stickers, and you needed 678 in total to complete the sticker album. Each pack cost roughly $1.20, which means, assuming you got no duplicates (almost impossible), you’d be spending at least $135.60 on 113 packs.
That’s quite a lot on stickers, but what happens if we factor in duplicates?
Well, with every new sticker we get, the probability of finding another sticker we haven’t got goes down, so the closer you get, the farther away your ultimate goal seems.
For a 50% chance of completing the album, you’d need to spend roughly $883.87. If you want to boost the odds to 75% chance of completion, you’re looking at something just shy of $1000.
And for a 90% chance of glory, factoring in setbacks from duplicates, you’re looking at something to the tune of $1125, giving you around 993 sticker packs.
To increase your chances to a very satisfying 100%, you’d need to buy about 2000 sticker packs.
Final Thoughts
So, as you can see, this isn’t a hobby to be pursued lightly. It takes dedication, luck, and most of all, money.
But if you’re passionate about the sport in question, and you have some spare funds kicking about, then Panini sticker albums are a fantastic way to express your love of the game.
Panini don’t just make stickers of course. There are plenty of cards available too. If you would like to learn a little about Panini’s NASCAR trading cards then you can click here.
Apart from being such an interesting hobby that can take you in so many directions. It keeps you in touch with your younger self. I still feel the same level of excitement when adding a new card to the collection.
I'm still learning, and I always will be. I hope you find my posts helpful.
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