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Today’s World Cup ticket design (left) versus the design from 1930 (right)

You don’t have to go very far to find evidence that the World Cup is making headlines at just about every media outlet out there, ourselves included. It’s easy to find yourself caught up with footie fever, packed into a tiny bar with fifty other screaming fans pushing you away from the bar (and television). While 100 Chileans recently demonstrated otherwise, tickets are coveted enough to make for a keepsake or even a prized possession, should your team prevail. Here’s a look at the ever-evolving ticket designs from 1930, when FIFA started distributing them, to present day.

1930

1950

The ticket from the inaugural World Cup games in Uruguay may look pretty basic, but used ones go for close to $1,700 on collector sites nowadays. The outbreak of World War II meant a 12-year hiatus, which returned to Brazil in 1950 with a new design feature: the stub.

1954’s World Cup ticket

The stub was overall shortlived, it seems. In 1954—the first year the Cup was televised, by the way—tickets came in different shapes/sizes depending on which round it was, incorporating the stub only in tickets for the final.

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