Since the soccer World Cup in Mexico in 1970, the Italian company Panini has been publishing collectible pictures in the run-up to the World and European Championships, which can be stuck into an accompanying album. Every time this triggers a collecting fever in people. Kurt Prenner-Platzgummer from Lochau is someone who has been gripped by the collecting fever. He comes from Salzburg, played football there himself and has been collecting Panini stickers since he was young. Prenner-Platzgummer owns all Panini football scrapbooks. From the 1970 World Cup in Mexico to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Around 400 different Panini scrapbooks
The Panini company does not only produce football sticker albums. In total, Prenner-Platzgummer owns around 400 Panini albums. These range from football to Walt Disney films to movies like Harry Potter. The albums are almost all full. In his youth, Prenner-Platzgummer lacked a little money to get all the albums, the Lochauer admits.
The difficult thing about collecting is getting all the stickers, which also costs a lot of money. It is particularly difficult to get the glitter stickers. But Prenner-Platzgummer knows how to help himself and keeps organizing file swapping platforms so that he and everyone else can fill up their albums. In an emergency, you can also order the stickers from Panini.
The hype is football
Prenner-Platzgummer sees football as the reason for the hype surrounding the Panini stickers. On his swap meets, he notices that passion is often passed on from father to child. “Football-interested parents naturally pass this on to their children, so that they are also interested in soccer,” says Prenner-Platzgummer.
money invested and value
The passionate collector invested a lot of money in the Panini sticker albums. “For me personally, they are of enormous value,” says Prenner-Platzgummer. The first football sticker album from the 1970 World Cup in Mexico is being traded on the Internet for around 600 euros. But selling is out of the question for him.
No Panini album at the next European Championship
The exclusive partnership between Panini and the European football association UEFA, which has existed since 1980, will end in 2022 for the time being. After about 42 years, the US company Topps took over the production and distribution of exclusive collector’s stickers, cards and other collector’s souvenirs for the 2024 and 2028 European Championships .
Prenner-Platzgummer thinks that’s a shame, because the word Panini stands for sticker albums. “But it’s like everywhere else, the others offered more money,” said Lochauer. Topps now has the rights for the next two European Championships. Everything is still open for the world championships, says Prenner-Platzgummer. Since 48 instead of 32 teams will take part in the next World Cup, collecting will be much more expensive, because then you need around 1,000 stickers to fill the album.
Prenner-Platzgummer is not quite sure whether he will continue to collect after the Panini era. “I’ll look at the first issue at the EM 2024, after that I don’t know yet,” says Prenner-Platzgummer.
Football stadium full of Playmobil figures
However, Prenner-Platzgummer not only collects Panini stickers, but also soccer games. He also started collecting Playmobil figures through a competition with a friend. In the run-up to the soccer World Cup, he used them to build a soccer stadium in the GWL shopping center in Bregenz. Its stadium has space for around 2,000 figures.
Passionate collector of Panini stickers
Most football fans know them: the Panini collection albums. “Vorarlberg today” met a person from Lochau who had been gripped by collecting fever many years ago.
