If you're over the age of 30, chances are that you probably picked up a Panini sticker album at some point during your childhood. It might have been one of the many, many football albums released on an annual basis, or perhaps something like Star Wars or The Beano. This writer in particular remembers a time when he finally managed to pick up a sticker of Alan Shearer for the 1998 World Cup sticker album; what a rush!
For fans of Super Mario, you can currently pick up an awesome Panini sticker album based on our favourite plumber right now for less than £5 in the UK. Prices vary slightly depending on where exactly you decide to shop, but you're generally looking at around £4.95 for a Starter Pack, which includes the album itself alongside 31 stickers.
If you want to really splurge, however, the official Panini site is currently offering up a bundle that includes the album and 36 packs of stickers for £32.40.
Let's take a look at the product itself:
Of course, it goes without saying that this is very much intended for younger Super Mario enthusiasts, but there's just something inherently satisfying about popping a stick into an album with pinpoint accuracy. If that speaks to you, then this might well be something to invest in.
Are you interested in picking up a Super Mario sticker album? What memories do you have of sticker albums from your younger years? Let us know with a comment.
Comments (40)
I saw this and unironically wanted to buy it but didn't and when I came back to get it after watching the movie they had all gone cry
Definitely getting it if I find it anywhere
Had a sticker book of Sonic and the original Power Rangers when I was a kid. Not sure if i still have them. Didn't know they are still making these, thought this died in the 90's.
Ahh pannini stickers - the origin of loot boxes!
Collecting is so much fun. I remember when everyone had a sticker album and we were all trading with each other. No particular brand. Even the teachers where trading with us. Some stickers even had a furlike texture. I liked them very much and we called them "Plüschies" if I remember correctly.
It was a great time and I am interested in this new Panini Super Mario album.
Man the only sticker book I've ever had was first gen pokemon. I'm 31 and I'm tempted to get and complete this one.
I recently picked up a box of 48 brand new still sealed Topps Nintendo Game Packs scratch off cards and stickers that were released in 1989!
My younger self just high fived my now older current self.
Bummer this isn’t available in the states.
Imagine if Nintendo released a book with backgrounds to use all those stickers that come with various game pre-orders. Would make an epic my Nintendo reward.
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Been collecting myself. Questioned whether I should or not, being a 34 year old guy, but thought what the heck!? 🤷 I now just need 7 stickers to fill the book 😆
Also got this but I couldn't find it in the shops so I had to order the album and a box of stickers from the Panini website.
This collection seems to have red bordered variants and gold bordered variants of some of the stickers that appear once in every 10 packets and once in every 20 packets respectively... they're not needed but for someone who has to complete a collection 200%, it's very frustrating.
@fox_mattcloud what ones do you need, maybe we can swap?
I remember Merlin Stickers did a general Nintendo sticker book back on the late 80s. While I never had a NES at the time, I learned all about Zelda 2 from that…
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/224012531466
Love it! I collected the Panini Super Mario CARDS that were released a year or 2 ago and they were lovely...I hope I don't start on these...but I am sure I WILL hahaah
I am SUCH a hoarder
@fox_mattcloud that makes you VERY cool. Please never grow up!!
@Rambler That is SOOOO how it went! Made me smile.
I saw this at a local rail station a couple of months ago.
Will definitely consider it, loved sticker books when I was a child (I'm pretty sure I owned more than one Pokémon ones back then) and it should be relatively easy to find here in Italy considering it's Panini!
The gachas of my childhood.😄 And I even bought a few albums as recently as last decade (before the assortment withered down to a handful of football-themed ones) - never invested much into stickers for any, partly because they had a bad habit of disappearing from retail in ten weeks flat, yet the books themselves tended to make decent abridged but illustrated "novelisations" for the price.
This looks almost identical to a sticker book that was released here in the US about four years ago. My son and I had a lot of fun w/those stickers!
I’ve still got my Merlin 1992 Mario sticker album
Don’t do it these things are such a rip off, so hard complete a set the way you are supposed to and would cost hundreds of pounds.
Please Panini ... release that in South America too. We had enough of football albums .
I wish they did the Panini sticker thing they do in Europe here in the States. They had a really good tv article on it during the World Cup in the States. It looks really fun.
@quinnyboy58 I'd buy them for my kids because they would trade them at school. Easy, fun socialization.
I’m in my 40s now and this is the one I had as a kid:
https://www.lastdodo.com/en/items/5222971-nintendo-sticker-activity-album
Great times!!
I remember having a Transformers one when I was a kid. I hated it. All I wanted was a full set, but even with trading with friends, it wasn’t something I could achieve. Having blank boxes just irritated the crap outta me.
Nowadays, I hate this kinda stuff for a different reason. I realize now that it was exploiting children — or, more accurately, their parent’s wallets — using psychological manipulation. Same goes for trading cards, and all the blind boxes you see on store shelves these days. And — when it comes to video games — loot boxes, microtransactions, and cosmetic DLC. It’s all scummy, and should’ve never been allowed to be a thing.
Reading this comment section so far, it seems like people have fond memories of this stuff. I don’t understand, but okay. Maybe they had more friends than me, or had parents with deep pockets, so that they actually got a full set? I don’t know, but it sickens me to see these exploitative practices continue to scam people to this day.
@Rambler This was my immediate recall too!
I had Gremlins and Back to the Future, and a couple of World Cups. Good memories swapping them out at school.
Completely forgot about this. Bought it for my daughter a few months ago but haven't seen any packs in the shops since before the Mario Movie launched, which I find a little odd. Preferred the Panini cards that came put just before this. They were DOPE AF!
@asmi8803 that is so awesome! My older brother had it too... I wonder what he did with it...?
It’s been out since the Mario movie hit cinemas……this is old news!
@dew12333 @nhSnork @Impossibilium A big difference compared to loot boxes, gacha etc. is that you can trade duplicates, making it easier (although unfortunately not sure) to complete your collection and especially an occasion for socialization like @Cashews said which much outweighs the negatives in my opinion (also shown by how many of us in this comment section have fond memories of these)!
@JohnnyMind I've heard the argument before and I actually beg to differ. Trading duplicate stickers requires someone to trade with, and then there's the matter of negotiations which adds its own fine print even to the digital trading apps like Disney Topps I've used for a while. Random loot in video games, on the contrary, is typically designed to be readily convertible into something else your playthrough can incrementally benefit from - be it currency towards more gacha pulls, tokens to save up for a guaranteed item of choice or just general purpose resources. And as a player, I don't have to rely on anyone else in the audience to make use of it all.
Like I argued above, sticker albums don't evoke fond memories for being superior to modern gachas but rather for being typically enjoyable enough regardless of the completion degree. Even the empty sticker slots aren't overly conspicuous - instead of some cut-in boxes, they're usually just thin frames printed over the general page background (but naturally placed so as not to obscure anything important once you put the respective sticker on). Even if you have little to no luck with the collection itself, you're effectively left with a neat picture book often for the cheaper price than its non-gacha analogues (which I suppose may not be surprising since the sticker pack sales likely cover a fair bit of the album's production costs).
EDIT: forgot to add that, in all fairness, the aforementioned Topps apps also allow you a variety of conversion options for the duplicate cards you can't trade off. But that just rests the case about the modern approach to this domain.
@JohnnyMind The only thing we have in the states like it are collectible cards. Panini dominates the sports card market here in the states now I wish they'd try the stickers before my kids get too old. I'd probably collect basketball stickers if they released those.
@nhSnork Agree about luckily being able to convert duplicates into currency etc. in most, but not all gacha games, it depends on the developer while physical duplicates luckily don't have that limitation.
Completely agree about sticker albums being enjoyable enough regardless of the completion degree, I didn't complete many if at all as a kid and still quite enjoyed them!
That said, there's fun to be found in socializing through sticker albums, collectible cards etc. that I haven't seen in gacha etc. and I simply wanted to point it out as a big positive of that which might, and in my opinion it does, outweigh the negatives of these practices.
@Cashews Didn't know it was that limited in the States, hope stickers etc. will show up sooner rather than later for your kids and other children to enjoy them, too!
@JohnnyMind I agree there are lots of differences between the two, and I too have good memories. The football stickers were huge when I was younger, but I never filled one and realised that without spending lots of money I never would. You would think I would have learned my lesson, but years later I fell for those Kid Icarus cards. Sure enough I didn't complete it, in fact managed to 90% two, both with pretty much the same ones missing!
But in the aspect of the fact that they are the closest that business can get to gambling for kids they are pretty similar.
@dew12333 Nice to hear your experiences with them!
Yeah, agree that they're pretty similar, just wanted to point out some differences, especially since I consider them positive ones (although @nhSnork made some interesting points about loot boxes etc.).
@JohnnyMind I have a hard time recalling a dev who wouldn't offer the necessary conversion in their games (sometimes it can get more limited down the road, like when Fire Emblem Heroes disabled merging units with lower grade duplicates, but other uses for the latter still remained), although, despite dealing with the domain since around 2012, I may have mercifully missed out on a period of scarcity.
Socializing fun was never a make-or-break factor for me, but it should indeed be an undeniable boon for those who value it more. This is likely why all kinds of multiplayer in games and activities (physical like albums or digital like Topps) retain popularity to this day, warts and all.😄
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