Topps 1992 - The Airbrush Lives!

By the 1990's Topps had apparently retired the airbrush. They didn't seem as concerned about getting cards up to date before their release because they had the traded set coming later in the season.

But this card caught my eye as I was flipping through the 90's sets. Look at the hat on Turk Wendell. It looks like a flashback to the '70's.



Now compare it to this 1975 card of Tom Dettore. Seventeen years later and no improvement!



The Cubs had acquired Turk in a trade with the Braves at the tail end of the 1991 season. That meant Topps would have no picture of him in Cubbie blue. I'm sure that's what forced them to dust off the airbrush. But you would have thought that by 1992 they would have had technology available to come up with something better than this. But no, this is what we got.

Here it is in an enlarged version



Maybe this was Topps first attempt at creating the Heritage look.