Soccer admirer nets £115,000 with exclusive Panini sticker of Argentina’s 2022 Planet Cup hero Lionel Messi
A exclusive sticker showcasing footballer Lionel Messi and issued for the 2022 Planet Cup has marketed for £115,000.
Aspect of a established designed for collectors, it features a photograph of Messi in his blue and white Argentina package (pictured still left) but was the only a person to be printed with a black border.
Created by Italian corporation Panini, which makes textbooks, comics, publications, stickers and investing playing cards, it was in a standard pack of 5 that lucky collector Henry Barrios bought to place into his World Cup sticker album.
He experienced bought 300 packs to kick off the album last September.
Mr Barrios, from Virginia in the US, realised it was the ‘holy grail’ of Panini stickers and determined to auction it following Messi led Argentina to Environment Cup glory in Qatar.
The one of a kind Panini sticker for Lionel Messi issued for the 2022 Planet Cup which sold for a staggering £115,000
Argentina’s Lionel Messi kisses the trophy as he celebrates profitable the World Cup
It bought for $139,000 (£115,000) at Goldin Auctions of New Jersey.
Panini had made a decision to problem a constrained number of stickers for all 600 players in the 2022 Globe Cup with distinctive coloured borders to go alongside the common white borders.
A Goldin spokesman said: ‘The card was made by Panini as a a single of 1 variation of the base Messi sticker in their 2022 Qatar Planet Cup products.
‘Panini has unveiled Environment Cup stickers for numerous several years, but this is the very first time they experienced 1 of 1 variants.
‘The sale rate is because of to the point that Messi is commonly thought of a single of the very best players of all time and he happened to earn the Globe Cup past 12 months.
‘With that becoming claimed, timing is every thing and the timing of the sale benefited as the solution is new and attractive at the minute, but that does not mean this card will not enhance in benefit in the upcoming.
‘It was a incredibly fortunate obtain by our consigner.’
The £115,000 paid out for the Messi sticker is £355,000 fewer than the most high-priced Panini sticker at any time offered.
That was for one of Diego Maradona from 1980 that was bought for £470,000 at auction in 2021.
That defeat the past history for a Pele sticker from 1958 that offered for £237,000 in 2020.
Last yr a Panini sticker of a youthful Cristiano Ronaldo from his time at Sporting Lisbon in 2002 sold for almost £60,000.