2007 Topps Updates & Highlights Baseball Forum

I recently discovered the #UH100 variation for Jacoby Ellsbury, and as a set completist, saw this card as an important acquistion at its deeply discounted price.  At one point, I see that this card was valued at over $100, but has now fallen to below $25. 

Does anyone know the deal with this card?  Why did Topps include a #UH100b variation for a different player instead of adding him to the end.  I know that 2007 was the year that gimmicks and variations really started taking off, but I had step outside of the modern era for a few years after that whole Alex Gordon cut-out thing in 2006.

The 2007 set does have a few big bloopers like the Yuniesky/Guillen card mix-up as well as the Denorphia/Carrasco card mix-up.  I know that the Ellsbury card isn't really considered as part of the set, but I really don't know how it couldn't be.  It's a different card. 

Anyways, I found one of these at a decent price and integrated it into the front of my 2007 Topps set binder with the rest of the World Series champion Red Sox from '07. 

Not really sure of the whole history of this card, but as a variation collector you are correct that 2007 was the first year of a number of intended variations.  There is also the Joba Chamberlain reverse negative card in the Update set, which can be had super cheap now (less than $10) compared to when the set was released.  There is also the short printed "Poley Walnuts" card, numbered SQ1, of the squirrel that ran up the foul pole.  There are a bunch of variations and errors in the base set too, as there were a few errors that were corrected in the factory set and a few intentional variations, such as the Bush/Jeter card and the 5 rookie variations that were only available at WalMart.  I'm aware of 17 errors/variations in the base set.

My guess is that when Topps put the original checklist together, Ellsbury wasn't even on the radar but came on the scene later so they decided this was the best way to get him into the release vs. adding a base card and dropping somebody else.