10 Things you didn’t know about Panini World Cup stickers

1. Panini, based in Modena, began producing stickers for Italian football in the 1960s. The first World Cup album was produced in 1970 but the stickers didn’t arrive in the UK until 1978.

2. The first World Cup album had 250 stickers, compared with some 682 for Russia 2018. Were you to strike lucky and get packs with no duplicates, it would cost you £63.90 to fill your album for Mexico 70.

3. In 1970, the main footballing nations had 14 slots for individual players while the lesser-known ones got 10. Now each of the 24 competing countries gets 20 slots (18 individual mugshots, a group photo and a badge), along with pages devoted to stickers of the trophy, a football, various World Cup logos, a Fifa fair play badge, a Panini logo and all the stadiums hosting games.

4. In the early 1970s the company was the first to introducing self-adhesive stickers; as opposed to using glue.

5. Last year a completed Mexico 70 album was sold for £5,050 at auction, and a completed Mexico 86 album recently sold for £811.

6. Earlier this year Prof Harper, from Cardiff University’s School of Mathematics, estimated it would cost the average collector £773.60 to fill this year’s World Cup album.

7. Italian Gianni Bellini has the world’s biggest Panini sticker collection with 3,000 completed albums.

8. Panini collectors introduced a new playground lexicon to the UK in the 1980s including phrases such as: “Got, got, got, need” as well as “doubles”, “swapsies” and “shinies”.

9. Panini generates up to £650 million from sales of stickers during a World Cup year. But 2018 being the first time Italy has failed to qualify for a World Cup since Panini stickers have been around may hit sales in their home country.

10. Panini is the only trading card manufacturer in the world with a presence in all four major US sports – basketball, American football, baseball and the National Hockey League.