The 2018 Topps Heritage Baseball card set saw Topps reintroduce vintage-themed designs in a bid to appeal to nostalgic collectors. As with prior Heritage sets, Topps mined the archives to revive classic art and imagery from the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. While not quite as iconic as their inspirations, 2018 Topps Heritage cards have grown in popularity and demonstrated strong secondary market demand.
The 2018 Heritage set totals 332 cards and includes base Reds, parallels and insert cards. The designs harken back to Topps issues from 1967, 1977 and 1984. For example, the 1967 design uses a simple team logo atop the player photo with stats below, while 1977 employs a more colorful banner style. 1984-inspired cards have a larger headshot and bolder colors/font throughout. As with past Heritage sets, the cardstock replicates the thicker feel and finishes of older Topps issues.
In terms of base cards, the 2018 Topps Heritage standard issue reds remain reasonable in price. Most common star and rookie cards from the reds checklist trade in the $2-5 range. The reds of certain high-end stars like Mike Trout, Christian Yelich and possible Hall of Famers like Ichiro Suzuki command $10-20 each. Rookies that have broken out also carry higher values, such as Juan Soto reds hovering around $15-25 given his early success.
When it comes to parallels and short prints, demand and thus pricing ramps up considerably for the rarer Heritage variations. The most coveted are the 1/1 printing plates, which naturally fetch premium prices upwards of several hundred dollars. Rainbow foil parallels number to only 50 copies each and trade hands for $50-150 on average depending on the player featured. Conversely, the unnumbered foilboard and sepia parallels have larger print runs into the thousands yet still pull $5-15 a card.
As for sought-after short prints and/or serially numbered inserts, prices really take off. Popular short prints like Mike Trout (#/499), Christian Yelich (#/350) and Mookie Betts (#/299) regularly sell in the $75-150 range. Low numbered parallels under #/50 of star rookies such as Juan Soto command $200-400. Iconic veterans in highly limited parallels also appreciate substantially – for instance, a #/25 Derek Jeter sells for $500-1000. Exceedingly rare autograph and patch parallels of top names can even reach several thousands of dollars.
Besides star players, a few key rookie cards from the 2018 Topps Heritage set stand out as strong long term investments given their early MLB success. As noted, top prospect Juan Soto cards hold substantial value already. Likewise, cards featuring Ronald Acuña Jr. breakout have increased sharply since his stellar rookie season. Acuña red parallels under #/200 now sell for $100-250 minimum. Rookie cards of budding superstars like Shohei Ohtani, Gleyber Torres, Walker Buehler and others should retain strong future demand if they continue producing at a high level.
All in all, the 2018 Topps Heritage set proved to be another highly collectible nostalgic throwback issue from Topps. While the base red cards remain moderate in price, the short prints, parallels and especially serially numbered rookie cards of budding stars exhibit strong potential for value growth going forward for savvy collectors. The Heritage brand has clearly resonated with both nostalgic collectors and those pursuing the cards of rising young MLB talents. As such, complete sets and key singles from the 2018 edition warrant consideration as a sound hobby-related investment.
