1934 Ya-Lo / Yalo Football Cards Set and Checklist

Posted on October 1, 2016 by Pre-War Cards

‘It’s In The Details’

Title	Ya-Lo Football Game Cards
Year	1934
Size	2 1/2″ x 3 1/2″
Images	Color
Type	Gaming
Number in Set	2

1934 Ya-Lo Football Cards Overview

The 1934 Ya-Lo Football cards were part of a gaming set. Only two different card designs exist – one is blue for offensive cards and the other is orange for defensive cards.

The cards do not contain pictures of specific players. Rather, each one is a generic image. The offensive card features a ball carrier and the other is in a defensive stance.

Both cards are somewhat rare but very inexpensive – usually only a few dollars. Despite not depicting specific teams or players, at that price, these cards are well worth a pickup for pre-war football card collectors. While the cards themselves pop up from time to time for sale, finding the complete game is a much more difficult task. They are around and will occasionally surface at an auction, but are very tough to secure.

In addition to the 1934 football game, Ya-Lo also created other games. In 1925, they issued another similar game and in 1940, they had a collegiate version.

The 1925 and 1934 cards used the same images and look virtually identical. But one way to tell them apart is that the 1925 cards used card numbers on the backs where the 1934 cards did not.

Red Grange?

While the images are often referred to as generic players, one interesting theory is that the cards actually depict one of football’s earliest stars, Red Grange. There’s not much concrete proof on that right now, but Grange played both offense and defense, so it’s not a stretch to picture him in both instances.

Better evidence of the link is that Grange was involved in the Ya-Lo Corporation, even helping to organize the company, according to this old newspaper link. That, of course, is no proof that Grange’s picture is on the card. But it certainly makes the assumption more reasonable.