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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
Overview
The 1959 Yoo-Hoo cards are a pretty 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.
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 $4200. And in the fall of 2019, they sold the #1 set without tabs (pictured above) for $1020. 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 207 cards in total, including:
- Yogi Berra: 9 with tabs and 14 without
- Whitey Ford: 9 with tabs and 30 without
- Tony Kubek: 9 with tabs and 51 without
- Gil McDougald: 8 with tabs and 59 without
- Bill Skowron: 9 with tabs and 9 without
SGC has graded quite a few as well (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 15 without (5 with no description)
- Tony Kubek: 2 with tabs and 29 without (5 with no description)
- Gil McDougald: 2 with tabs and 174 without
- Bill Skowron: 2 with tabs and 12 without (1 with no description)
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 (SGC has graded three of them, PSA five), but it’s considered an advertising piece and not a part of this set; its dimensions are a little smaller too. 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.
Example
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.
Checklist
Yogi Berra
Whitey Ford
Tony Kubek
Gil McDougald
Bill Skowron