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1959 Yoo-Hoo Specs
Year: 1959
Title: Yoo-Hoo
Size: The cards measure approximately 2-7/16″ by 3-9/16″ without the tab and 2-7/16″ by 4-1/2″ with the tab
Number in Set: 5
1959 Yoo-Hoo Overview
The 1959 Yoo-Hoo cards are a darn cool set of five New York Yankees cards that the company used to promote their chocolate-flavored soft drink, “The Drink of Champions!” They were distributed in the New York area with a six-pack of Yoo-Hoo.
The cards feature posed black and white spring training photos; they’re unnumbered and have blank backs. The fronts also have a facsimile autograph and the slogan “Me for Yoo-Hoo.”
Each card was issued with a tab along the bottom that could be cut off and redeemed for prizes, so surviving copies with tabs are significantly more expensive.
I’ve also seen collectors share a few copies with much longer “full-length” tabs.
1959 Yoo-Hoo Examples And Sales
In the Spring of 2018, Robert Edward Auctions sold a complete set with tabs, the highest on the PSA Set Registry at the time, for $4,200. And in the fall of 2019, they sold the #1 set without tabs (pictured above) for $1,080. But lower-grade individual cards are more affordable and present incredibly well because of the black-and-white design.
They’re also pretty available; PSA has graded 245 cards in total (as of October 2025), including:
- Yogi Berra: 9 with tabs and 23 without
- Whitey Ford: 9 with tabs and 45 without
- Tony Kubek: 9 with tabs and 63 without
- Gil McDougald: 8 with tabs and 61 without
- Bill Skowron: 9 with tabs and 9 without
SGC has graded quite a few as well 278, but who knows how many have crossed between the companies:
- Yogi Berra: 2 with tabs and 16 without (1 with no description)
- Whitey Ford: 2 with tabs and 19 without (6 with no description)
- Tony Kubek: 2 with tabs and 29 without (8 with no description)
- Gil McDougald: 2 with tabs and 175 without (1 with no description)
- Bill Skowron: 2 with tabs and 12 without (1 with no description)
Here are a few examples of graded individual card sales from the set:
- 1959 Yoo-Hoo Yogi Berra with Tab PSA 7: $2,760 in August 2022
- 1959 Yoo-Hoo Yogi Berra with Tab PSA 10: $2,400 in July 2018
- 1959 Yoo-Hoo Whitey Ford with Tab PSA 10: $2,400 in July 2018
- 1959 Yoo-Hoo Tony Kubak with Tab PSA 7: $2,250 in May 2023
- 1959 Yoo-Hoo Gil McDougald with Tab PSA 7: $1,440 in August 2022
- 1959 Yoo-Hoo Bill Skowron with Tab PSA 8: $990 in August 2022
The following ~21”x26” Yoo-Hoo advertising piece was sold in the fall of 2017 for $840 featuring Yogi Berra, the company’s chief spokesperson starting in the 1950s and for the next two decades. The piece was meant to be hung in stores selling the drink. The photo in the advertising piece and the 1959 card must have been taken moments apart.
On a related note, there is a 1959 Yoo-Hoo Mickey Mantle card, but it’s considered an advertising piece and not a part of this set; its dimensions are a little smaller too (I’ll re-publish an article I wrote about it in the near future). A set of Yoo-Hoo Bottle Caps from 1959 are also pretty popular today, featuring Berra, Ford, Kubek, Mantle, McDougald, and Skowron, which came in both a pry-off and screw-top style.
1959 Yoo-Hoo Key Cards
The Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards prices the Berra and Ford cards the same, but most would describe the Berra as the set’s scarcest and key card.
1959 Yoo-Hoo Checklist
Yogi Berra
Whitey Ford
Tony Kubek
Gil McDougald
Bill Skowron