I really liked stickers as a kid. I still remember that my sister stole/ruined some stickers I earned in the 2nd grade, the remaining stickers I am fairly certain I still have to this day. When you combined stickers with a love of sports, that was Panini.

Now, Panini has the exclusive license for NBA Basketball cards, but back when I was a kid, in the early nineties, they were known more for sticker albums. I still have my NBA album from Shaq’s rookie year, and lot of the stars, including Shaq, my favorite Warriors, and a bunch of All Stars that cool effects on their stickers. Just what any 12 year old what what!

A few days ago, while I was at the Fahasa Bookstore in Downtown Saigon, Q1 on Nguyen Hue, I saw posters for a football (soccer) sticker album from Panini! Love at first sight! I went to the second floor to find out more. I was a bit worried that they’d cost a ton, but only 25K ($1.30 USD) for the album and 1 sticker pack, and 6K VND for 5 sticker packs (32 cents). Nice! I picked up 103K worth ($5.26) of stuff (70 stickers!), and I was ready to collect them all!  It’s officially called the UEFA Champions League® 2009-2010 Official Sticker Album. But there’s some bad news.

There’s 564 stickers in all, which means your minimum commitment would be $35.62 USD. Of course, it’s only $35.62 if you get no duplicates, which really means your commitment would be closer to $70. Or even $100.

They (through BrandPartner.vn) do offer a service in which you can buy missing stickers manually for 5K VND each, but only a total of 50 stickers, and when you add shipping, you’re basically at 300K VND / $16 USD.

There’s also a cool promotion that if you are one of the first 5 people to get any football club’s full stickers (16 players) plus the first four stickers in the album, you can win the official World Cup ball, which according to Eastbay, is worth $150 USD. But…it looks like the winners may have already claimed their prizes.

By the way, I cannot imagine how heavy a complete sticker album would be. Also, a complete set without the hassle of randomness would cost you at least $80 USD, based on eBay prices. And as with anything, I guess fakes are a problem too. I had no idea what big business stickers are, especially considering you can buy a complete set of basketball cards for much cheaper.