April 3, 2025: Spring Auction
Here is an extraordinary artifact chronicling New York Yankees history from their greatest dynasty to its ultimate end and the dawn of a revitalized franchise in the 1970s, a complete run of the coveted Yankees Yearbooks, with some revised annual editions included. The run begins in 1950, Year No. 2 of the franchise’s historic five-year run of consecutive World Series titles, and covering the amazing stretch from 1949-64 when the club won 14 pennants in 16 years before finally fizzling out. The list below generally indicates the condition of the various Yearbook covers, with inside pages typically Excellent-Plus or better for the earliest years and improving a bit over time. There were a couple of early color covers, but generally they would be red or blue spot color until around the late 1960s, then full color thereafter. Page counts for early years were around 48 pages or so, growing to about twice that size by the late 1960s, with black-and-white photography primarily until a color centerfold arrived in 1967 and with more expansive use of inside color thereafter. The breakdown (29): 1) 1950 – Fair, with some tape repairs to the cover; 2) 1951 – Good, with some extraneous pen or pencil notations inside; 3) 1952 – Excellent; 4) 1953 – Excellent-Plus; 5) 1954 – Good; 6) 1955 – Ex-Mt-Plus; 7) 1956 – Good; 8) 1957 – Very Good; 9) 1958 – Excellent-Plus (mk); 10) 1959 – Good (mk); 11) 1960 – Good; 12) 1961 (2) – Regular and Revised, Ex-Mt and Very Good, respectively; 13) 1962 (2) – Championship and Regular, Fair and Ex-Mt-Plus, respectively; 14) 1963 – Revised, Ex-Mt (Very Good pages); 15) 1964 – Revised, Excellent; 16) 1965 (2) – Regular and Revised, Good and Ex-Mt-Plus; 17) 1966 – Revised, Ex-Mt-Plus; 18) 1967 – Good (color centerfold); 19) 1968 – Excellent-Plus, with some color inside; 20) 1969 – Ex-Mt-Plus, now 82 pages with much color inside including full-bleed Mantle image; 21) 1970 – Near-Mint, with four-page color foldout at the center; 22) 1971 – Near-Mint; 23) 1972 – Near-Mint-Plus; 24) 1973 – Near-Mint; 25) 1974 – Near-Mint; and 26) 1975 – cover is Good, inside Near-Mint.
1950-75 Run of New York Yankees Yearbooks (29)
Click above for larger image.