2018 Topps Heritage Includes an Expensive Odd Card of the Hobby

When a collector thinks of 2018 Topps Heritage Baseball, nothing out of the ordinary likely comes to mind. The common thought would a retro design modeled off a prior year of Topps Baseball, along with inserts, autographs, and some short prints. Overall, not a horribly expensive set to put together for set builders. But, there is a variation from the set that appears to have been overlooked for years, and as a result, it has been going for hundreds of dollars when it has been sold.

Mike Trout is card #275 in the set, and there are five different variations of his base card. The one that stands out the most is the batboy variation, which features the Angels Batboy at the time on the card, not Mike Trout (although the card still signifies Mike Trout as being on the card).

It appears that Topps did this in reference to the 1969 Topps Set, which featured a similar error card. In the 1969 set, the Angels bat boy was mistakenly also printed on a card which was supposed to feature 3rd baseman Aurelio Rodriguez. The original 1969 Topps card can be obtained easily, as copies only sell for $3-10. Yes, it is an error card, but is was never corrected, so it just became a part of the set. The original card also does not feature the biggest name in MLB history, so that does some what hurt it's value.

1969 Topps Baseball Aurelio Rodriguez Error | TCDB

The 2018 Heritage Mike Trout bat boy error does carry more value due to the fact they it was techincally "corrected". Although, the original error was intentional. A few copies have sold recently, with one sold on eBay at $500, graded as a PSA 9.

2018 Topps Heritage Mike Trout Batboy Error | eBay

Baseball collectors, check your collections. This was a variation that seemingly was very easy to overlook, and you might just have it if you ripped or have purchased any 2018 Topps Heritage.