HISTORY
Giuseppe Panini, an Italian, founded the Panini Company in 1961, having previously run the Panini Brothers Newspaper Distribution Agency. His brother Benito started with him in the business at the same time, while the other brothers, Umberto and Franco also joined the company in 1963. Giuseppe Panini died on October 18th 1996 at the age of 71.
The self-adhesive stickers were introduced for the first time in the 1971-72 Calciatori collection. Previous to this, the 'stickers' were made of light cardboard and collectors had to paste them into the album with glue - the highly sought after 1970 Munich World Cup collection consisted of these. At the end of the 1960's "celline" - small double-sided adhesive triangles - were attached to the back of the stickers so that they could be stuck in without having to use glue.
The Panini logo is a knight because Giuseppe Panini, who loved riddles and puzzles, invented his own crossword puzzles under the pseudonym "The Knight".