Lot # 3314: 1964 Yoo-Hoo New York Yankees Counter Display Featuring Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra

Scarce retail countertop display featuring Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, and six other Yankee players in promotion of "Yoo-Hoo Chocolate Drink - The Drink of Champions." Technically, this sign pictures five other New York Yankee players (Whitey Ford, Elston Howard, Joe Pepitone, Tom Tresh, and Bobby Richardson) and one former New York Yankee: Moose Skowron, who is pictured wearing a Senators cap. Skowron played with the Senators only for the first half of 1964, which allows for the precise dating of the piece. Despite that fact, he is still pictured in pinstripes, and in the hearts of New York fans he would always be a Yankee. Though many people recall Berra's long-standing promotion of the chocolate beverage, the drink was actually invented many years earlier, in the 1920s. It wasn't until Berra became friends with the owner of the company in the 1950s that Yoo-Hoo became a household word. Berra not only recruited a number of investors to help finance a major production facility, he also enlisted the aid of many of his teammates, most important Mickey Mantle, to help promote the beverage. Their efforts were very successful. In a short time Yoo-Hoo became one of the most popular refreshments in America and the chosen drink of every diehard Yankees fan. In the mid-1990s a very small find (fewer than ten) of these display counter signs turned up. Though a few examples had been known previously, most of the very few high quality examples in the collecting world today (probably including this example) came from that one small find. This sign was intended for countertop display and was originally issued with an easel back. The offered piece has not been examined out of frame, so we cannot state with certainty whether or not it is complete as issued. The display (10.5 x 13.5 inches, visible dimensions) has minimal wear and is in apparent Near Mint condition overall. Matted and framed to total dimensions of 16.25 x 19.25 inches. A seldom-seen point-of-sale advertising gem from the 1960s heyday of both the Yankees and Yoo-Hoo. The size/weight of this item requires that there will be an additional shipping charge for this lot.