I have 22 completed soccer tournament sticker albums. Is my collection valuable? DAN HATFIELD answers
I have a collection of sticker albums, mainly ‘Panini’, for football tournaments (World Cup and European Championship) dating back to Euro 88 in West Germany.
I would like to know the estimated current value and whether it is worth selling now or holding on to a price increase over the next twenty years.
They are generally in ‘good/very good condition’ and are all complete. I also have a few thousand loose ‘spare’ stickers.
I enjoyed collecting, but after collecting they just sit in storage and I don’t know if it’s time to sell, make some money and let someone else enjoy them. Chris, Swindon.
Back of the net? Chris has submitted his collection of Panini sticker albums, including from every World Cup since Mexico 86
Dan Hatfield, resident This is Money expert, responds: Happy New Year to you all – I’ve dusted off my trusty appraiser’s loupe and am ready to unearth more of your modern treasures in 2025 (read the box at the bottom on how to get your items valued…)
My new resolution for 2025 is to exercise more and I’ve decided to tackle a different kind of sporting activity this week: appreciating football sticker albums.
With the sheer number of football albums you have submitted, I am confident that the physical exertion of wading through them will be exactly the same as being on the pitch for 90 minutes.
The legacy of sticker albums can easily be associated with the well-known company Panini, but when I browse through your collection I also see a UEFA album from 2024, when controversy arose in the sticker market and the rights for stickers were awarded to American rivals. Topps.
Before we delve deeper into this, let’s first delve into the origins of the football sticker book. In 1961, brother Benito and Giuseppe Panini got into the sticker business, almost by accident because they bought a huge batch of football stickers that someone else couldn’t move, so they decided to try selling the product themselves.
Fast forward 60 years and Panini is a name that is as much a part of football culture as muddy boots and chants on the terraces.
With some entrepreneurial spirit, the brothers bundled the stickers into sets and sold them from a newsstand in Modena, Italy.
To their surprise, the stickers flew off the shelves. They felt they were onto something big and started producing their own stickers, featuring the football stars of the time.
But it was their idea to combine the stickers with an album, a kind of trophy case for fans, that was truly worth its weight in gold.
In 1970, Panini went global and launched their first international sticker collection for the FIFA World Cup in Mexico. It was a masterstroke.
Sticker mania spread to playgrounds, offices and even drinking establishments around the world, as adults and children alike got involved.
By the 1980s, exchanging duplicates and chasing that elusive final sticker had become as much a part of the game as the goals themselves.
Could your collection of this Italian phenomenon buy your football club?
Your collection is certainly impressive, although I find it hard to wish it included my favorite: the 1970 Panini World Cup edition.
Recently, a completed copy of this historic album sold at auction for £2,400 due to its rarity and the fact that it was the first international football sticker album to be sold.
While you don’t have this, you do have plenty of other albums that should give you a decent end result.
Starting with your World Cup albums, the more recent editions from 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022 hold steady at around £30 to £40 each.
These albums were produced in large quantities, so while they are a good reminder of exciting tournaments, they have not yet acquired any significant value, but who knows what the future will bring as they get older.
Germany 2006 makes a small improvement at £40 to £50, but things get much more interesting with Korea/Japan 2002, which is worth £90 to £100.
France 1998 and USA 1994 also return solid valuations at £100 each, while Italia 1990 goes a step further at £100 to £120.
As for UEFA albums, the 2024 tournament marks the first time since 1977 that Panini has not produced the official album, with the rights shifting to rival company Topps.
US sports merchandising giant Fanatics owns Topps and had the financial muscle to topple Panini as it tried to aggressively expand into the European football sticker market.
This led to a rather tense and awkward head-to-head confrontation, with Panini releasing its own unofficial version.
Panini could still compete and release a sticker book titled ‘England 2024’, using the rights of England, Italy, Germany and France that were not part of UEFA’s deal – only available from M&S.
Regardless of any disputes, both albums are currently valued at the same price of £40 to £50 each.
Looking at your previous UEFA editions from 2020, 2016, 2012 and 2008, these have a fixed value of around £30 each.
The 2004 album Portugal rises slightly to £50, but it’s the Belgium/Dutch 2000 and 1996 England editions that stand out, each worth £100 to £150.
The 1992 Sweden and 1988 West Germany albums follow closely behind, priced between £120 and £150.
These older albums, with their classic designs and rarer stickers, are the real highlights of your collection.
For your collection as a whole I would estimate it at between £1,200 and £1,500, which is perfectly respectable and will no doubt have given you many years of enjoyment.
You also have a huge collection of individual stickers. It’s hard to put a price on these, but on a rainy afternoon it’s worth searching through them individually, in case they’re rare or sought after.

Euros: The collection includes completed Euros sticker albums since Euro 88
If you do want to sell them, it may be worth visiting a trade show and making a deal with a sports card dealer.
And just so you don’t burst your bubble, let’s take a quick look at what it costs to complete one of these sticker books.
A single sticker used to cost the equivalent of 5 cents in today’s money.
Now each sticker will earn you as much as 18 cents. In 2022, it was estimated that completing a modern album would cost £120.60 if you were lucky enough not to get duplicates.
But in reality, it could cost you almost a thousand dollars to get your hands on every single sticker. So not a great return on your investment if you do it for cash purposes, but most people I know collect these are for fun – especially with their kids.
I really love your collection; it is a piece of football history and a commemorative piece of the beautiful game.
As the digital age continues to take hold, these albums could grow significantly in value over the coming decades, so take good care of them, but for now I hope you enjoy the years of passion you put into collecting them stabbed.
Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on it, we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow a commercial relationship to compromise our editorial independence.