EDICOLA NEWS: THE REVIEWS nr. 262
album: Moto GP (Panini)
stickers: 240 (1-240)
starter pack: album + 5 packets 4,90€
box: 36 packets (5 stickers per packet) 1,00€ cad.
Panini takes to the track! More stickers publishers are welcome, they make the market more sparkling and interesting, with more proposals and with, not always but often, a preparation work to make the products more interesting and break through an important but very varied and fragmented market.
We like to think that without the Topps F1 albums, perhaps in Panini they would never have thought of an album on motorcycling (finally!) and without having the presumption that in Modena they read our reviews taking ideas, we like to think that the improvements in contents, on this album compared to that of F1, may also be the result of our comments and many other collectors on the internet.
Panini therefore takes its cue from the product of the American factory and makes it more complete, more varied and even more celebratory. The world of engines also lives a lot of memories, stories, myths, an album without this aspect is an incomplete album and so, despite the excellent Topps production (also in relation to quality / price), in the F1 albums it was always missing and strongly more than something.
First applause, the 20 single stickers of all the circuits of the world championship, with a brief introduction that sometimes seems to repeat itself but presents in a captivating way the historical and new tracks where the centaurs whiz by. If in the Calciatori albums we always want the stickers of the stadiums, in those of the engines not to include them the lack would be felt. With their characteristics, including curves, straights and ups and downs, they are the absolute protagonists with the riders and motorcycles.
All teams have broadly the same number of stickers and feature the pair of pilots with giant photos as an introduction. Each team therefore has a special silver sticker with the driver’s number, which is very much from the 1980s and the stickers that many of us kept attached to their scooters, simple (perhaps) but with a real passion. The classic sticker with bust photo of the rider with the detail of the victories between the three different categories, stickers of the helmet, the motorcycle and the rider with the motorcycle on the track. The overall sticker is also beautiful, with the bike on the track seen from the front and the face of its rider in the background.
The graphics of the pages are essential but unlike other albums we do not feel the need for extra colors and images, we are of those who “the stickers always stick” but really on this occasion only upon completion the album explodes with all the its charm. You could take a further step, perhaps with some shaped, possible ideas for the future, but perhaps the overall view of the pages would have been affected.
Final part of the album with the stickers of Moto 2 and 3. The riders are presented in stripes as we have seen in recent football albums. An appropriate choice to be able to insert them all without making the album too heavy. Second applause for the Legends stickers, it is impossible to put all the great champions of the recent or remote past, but being able to attack the stickers of Giacomo Agostini or Vale Rossi is always a pleasure. The world championship is also a legend, just to evoke it, just to be part of the album.
Personally we would have avoided the 25 stickers that trace the first part of the history of the current world championship. From Panini’s point of view it was certainly a need to make the album more full-bodied, from our point of view on the contrary it would have brought the whole to be just over 200 stickers, a number suitable for current collections. Also counting the cost and the choice that we do not share of the box of just 36 packets (luckily at least it is not 24), a box created to contain 50.
We remain of the idea that although we cannot hope that the collection can be completed with a box, the box should contain a number of stickers in line with the total of those on the album. Of course we speak as passionate collectors, not as a company that thinks about profits, but we must also create the conditions so that our beloved world can have a rosy future.
No (useless) cards, but in this case perhaps because an Adrenalyn series will also be released. The quality of the album paper is more than acceptable, perhaps Panini has emptied the warehouse with the previous paper. We hope, as we hope this album will have a following also in the next few years, the passion for the world championship deserved an album of stickers!
(EN)