Sticker album

A sticker album is a book or binder to collect stickers, often arranged into designated sections. Commercial sticker albums have been released for sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup, English Premier League and for specific TV shows, Movies, Animals or Music. Prominent vendors include Panini, Merlin Publishing, Topps and many others.

History

Dedicated albums have been released for many topics, including:

1915 Thrifty Alexander album to promote consumer savings
1935 Sinclair Dinosaur Stamp Album
1939 New York World's Fair sticker Album of the World's Fair Pictures
1942 U.S. military combat unit insignia
1955 Around the World Program of geography albums by the American Geographical Society
1970 FIFA World Cup collectible association football sticker album from Panini.

Initiating a craze for collecting and trading stickers, UK newspaper The Guardian states, "the tradition of swapping duplicate stickers was a playground fixture during the 1970s and 1980s." A complete 1970 World Cup sticker album signed by Pelé sold for a record £10,450.
The stickers are usually sold in blind packs, so the purchaser does not know which stickers they are buying. Collectors then swap or sell their spares with other collectors. When perusing a fellow collector's stickers in order to determine which stickers are of interest, it is usual practice for the prospective recipient to sort through the stack of stickers quickly in their hands, and place them into 2 piles. Protocol dictates that the sorter must state out loud either "got it" or "need it" as they assess each sticker in turn.

Layout

Sports

A sports-related sticker album, such as Panini's FIFA World Cup edition, have designated sections for each team along with numbered rectangles for each sticker. Each sticker will have the player's picture and below it there is usually their name, birth date, position and birthplace. In addition to the players, there are stickers which bear the team's crest and a team photo. Under its Merlin brand, since 1994 Topps has held the licence to produce a sticker album for the Premier League, which is the best selling annual collectable for boys in the UK. According to the Panini Group, the 2010 FIFA World Cup album sold 10 million packs in the U.S. alone.

Digital sticker album

In May 2006, Panini partnered with The Coca-Cola Company and Tokenzone to produce the first virtual sticker album for the 2006 FIFA World Cup. For the 2014 FIFA World Cup, three million FIFA.com users took part in the Panini Digital Sticker Album contest. Panini developed an app for the 2018 FIFA World Cup where fans could collect and swap virtual stickers. Five million people gathered digital stickers for the 2018 World Cup.