I remember tagging along with a couple of my soccer fan friends during a past World Cup (2012?) over to Jackson Heights in Queens where there was (and probably still is) a big sticker collecting scene. Lots of people just hanging out on a corner of 37th Ave selling and trading stickers. It was the first time I'd ever heard of this and certainly reminded me of growing up with baseball cards, as well!
I loved the Panini baseball sticker books as a little girl and I think I still have all of mine. I feel like you could write a letter once a year and request five stickers for free from the company.
Micky Van de Ven has some legendary highlights of blazing the length of the pitch, past everyone, to score goals. But he's a legend for his game saving acrobatics in the Europa League final. COYS
Panini does sticker swaps in locations around the US. You can go meet other sticker heads and trade for the ones you are missing. It’s like your own private little convention.
You can also get stickers from Panini directly (up to 50 each) for almost nothing because they understand the challenge of the Chase.
My family and I have been doing this for 5 WC now. It’s a tradition and we will be getting together to open and fill the book this week. Can’t wait.
Let me know what you’re missing and I’ll swap you once we get through. Enjoy!!!
I wish I had cards to send you. Completing sets is a diabolical sales tactic. It's referred to as the "Coupon Collector's Problem" and it grows logarithmically with the size of the set. The average number of stickers you need to collect to complete a 100 sticker set is over 500, and that assumes that the cards are equally likely. If they make some stickers more rare, that number grows even more.
Getting many duplicates is more common than you expect. If I calculated it correctly, the chance of getting five or more stickers of at least one random player in the first 100 stickers is almost 30%.
[If someone want to check my path for the duplicate problem, you have a 0.34% percent chance of getting five or more of a specific sticker, so the odds of getting at least one player with five or more in the first 100 stickers is 1-(1-0.0034)^100. ]
I love the World Cup, and I am glad you have found your way into it!
For me, the World Cup always comes at the exact right moment to revitalize my love of soccer. Club soccer is played at a higher level and I very much enjoy watching it, but after four years it tends to drag a little bit. And then the World Cup comes with somewhat worse soccer but absolutely spectacular fandom and it just re-energizes me.
Maybe somebody should write a book about the experience of being a fan like that.
I'm 56 and when I travel, stickers are my new obsession. Beginning of May I did an Anaheim-to Vegas-to Sedona-to Phoenix road trip and picked up 12 new stickers, including a bumper sticker from Peggy Sue's Diner in Yermo, CA which has fantastic food and looks exactly like you'd think a place named Peggy Sue's Diner should look. I highly recommend it.
I remember tagging along with a couple of my soccer fan friends during a past World Cup (2012?) over to Jackson Heights in Queens where there was (and probably still is) a big sticker collecting scene. Lots of people just hanging out on a corner of 37th Ave selling and trading stickers. It was the first time I'd ever heard of this and certainly reminded me of growing up with baseball cards, as well!
The "Otto Velez" of stickers------ and that is why I relate to Joe so well. WE speak the same language.
I loved the Panini baseball sticker books as a little girl and I think I still have all of mine. I feel like you could write a letter once a year and request five stickers for free from the company.
Anyone else old enough to remember this?
https://chuckthewriter.blog/2009/08/27/reminiscing-about-sunoco-nfl-72/
Micky Van de Ven has some legendary highlights of blazing the length of the pitch, past everyone, to score goals. But he's a legend for his game saving acrobatics in the Europa League final. COYS
For those who want to see the video referenced above: https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/history/video/0299-1dd0f1862c78-69db8859beec-1000--watch-micky-van-de-ven-s-jaw-dropping-goal-line-clearance/
Watching it at the 10 second mark gives you a better appreciation for how incredible the play was. COYS!
It gets better:
Panini does sticker swaps in locations around the US. You can go meet other sticker heads and trade for the ones you are missing. It’s like your own private little convention.
You can also get stickers from Panini directly (up to 50 each) for almost nothing because they understand the challenge of the Chase.
My family and I have been doing this for 5 WC now. It’s a tradition and we will be getting together to open and fill the book this week. Can’t wait.
Let me know what you’re missing and I’ll swap you once we get through. Enjoy!!!
I wish I had cards to send you. Completing sets is a diabolical sales tactic. It's referred to as the "Coupon Collector's Problem" and it grows logarithmically with the size of the set. The average number of stickers you need to collect to complete a 100 sticker set is over 500, and that assumes that the cards are equally likely. If they make some stickers more rare, that number grows even more.
Getting many duplicates is more common than you expect. If I calculated it correctly, the chance of getting five or more stickers of at least one random player in the first 100 stickers is almost 30%.
[If someone want to check my path for the duplicate problem, you have a 0.34% percent chance of getting five or more of a specific sticker, so the odds of getting at least one player with five or more in the first 100 stickers is 1-(1-0.0034)^100. ]
I love the World Cup, and I am glad you have found your way into it!
For me, the World Cup always comes at the exact right moment to revitalize my love of soccer. Club soccer is played at a higher level and I very much enjoy watching it, but after four years it tends to drag a little bit. And then the World Cup comes with somewhat worse soccer but absolutely spectacular fandom and it just re-energizes me.
Maybe somebody should write a book about the experience of being a fan like that.
I'm 56 and when I travel, stickers are my new obsession. Beginning of May I did an Anaheim-to Vegas-to Sedona-to Phoenix road trip and picked up 12 new stickers, including a bumper sticker from Peggy Sue's Diner in Yermo, CA which has fantastic food and looks exactly like you'd think a place named Peggy Sue's Diner should look. I highly recommend it.
When my family took a vacation to the northern California coast, we came home with several unwanted bumper stickers as well, like these.
https://share.google/images/B8TY4Xa4XKyZNJvqQ
Those are awesome!