‘Got!’: Panini 1970 World Cup sticker book completed after 56 years | Panini stickers
This week, Stephen Butler completed the collection he started almost 60 years ago. With the final piece in place, it is now worth thousands of pounds but he has no intention of selling it.
Five years ago, Butler was moving house and came across a box in the attic that he hadn’t thought about in years. Inside was his old school hat, some exercise books, photographs and, in the middle of it all, a 1970 Panini World Cup sticker book.
“It brought back so many memories,” Butler said.
The 1970 World Cup meant everything to Stephen at that time. He was a 13-year-old boy in the Ribble valley of Lancashire, watching England play colorful for the first time in Mexico City. They entered the tournament as cup holders by beating West Germany in the 1966 final, which increased the excitement even more.
“It was in color, it was live, it was on the other side of the world. So when my father got the color television, I thought about bringing the school holidays.”
Years later, Butler was surprised by the details he still remembered. Above all, he was concerned about the players and how they would hold up in the heat, but as he flipped through the Panini sticker book, he also remembered his favourites: Pelé and Jairzinho, who played for Brazil in the final, and Italian players like Boninsegna and Facchetti, who had impressed him, albeit with their exotic names.
All of the stickers were painstakingly collected in 1970, the beginning of Panini’s 60-year partnership with Fifa, which will end in 2030. Back then, Butler paid a pre-tithing nickel for a pack of four stickers at the tobacconist’s or candy store. But as she flipped through the book as an adult, she noticed something: A sticker was missing.
This was a country, not a player: there was a sticker that Chile had won for hosting the World Cup in Santiago in 1962, which Butler had failed to find in 1970.
So the collection remained unfinished for another five years, stored in a new house, in a new box. Until recently Butler had heard on the radio that Panini would stop making sticker books for Fifa.
“It’s a shame so much heritage has been lost,” says Butler. “It leaves a sour taste in the mouth.”
He looked at his book again and thought about missing something.
“I’m not a collector anymore,” says Butler. But this time, he thought he should try to finish the job. He went online and after some searching found someone selling the missing Chile sticker.
On the day FIFA announced that its partnership with Panini would end in 2030, Butler completed the collection it had started the year it started. He bought the Chile sticker for £150, which seemed high, but all of his 1970s sticker books sold at auction for between £7,000 and £10,000.
“Based on five cents for four stickers, I think this is about 1,000 times more than it originally cost,” Butler said.
But he’s not interested in selling it. “It’s a part of my life; it brings back interesting memories,” he says. “You know my memories are not anyone else’s, right?”
Stephen Butler is 69 and lives near Chichester with his wife Helen. They have three adult children who want to get their hands on it. [the sticker book]”.
“They’ll have to bid on that, right?” he’s joking.
