Without getting into wether it's a pasteup or not - And I'm on the fence about that- I can point out why someone would make a pasteup like that.
It's an old sales tool to drop names, even if the names dropped haven't signed or bought yet. Some old sales letters will mention well known personalities or companies that use the product, and yes it's underhanded, but some of those people or companies didn't ever buy the product.
So lets say you're trying to get Wagner to sign so you could use his image.
You send a letter saying something like "all the greatest players have agreed to be in the set". And along with that you send a sample. That sample can go a couple ways depending on the individual. Someone with a big ego that was very public say Reggie Jackson? You'd probably just include his own card. For most people you'd want to include their card plus a few others. Just like on this strip. Young is a good choice unless Wagner doesn't like him personally. Brown is also a good choice, one of the better pitchers, and also a national leaguer. Both those choices play to the ego, if Young and Brown are in the set most guys would want to be there as well. Bowerman and Kling seem like odd choices, maybe there were more sample strips and the better players got used up. OR maybe Bowerman and Kling were guys that were friends with Wagner or players he respected for some reason. I don;t know enough about Wagner or Bowerman and Kling to feel at all sure.
What doesn't quite fit this idea is Wagner being anywhwere other than the center of the strip. That's where I'd put him if the strip was a pasteup targeted towards him.
Totallly unsupported guess? If it's a pasteup maybe it was Bowermans and Wagner got it from him when he heard about the cards that he hadn't agreed to be on?
Pasteups like this would also be used to arrange the final sheet layout once all the designs had been approved either by the player portrayed or the printers art department. or both. I think modern cards have a whole crew of approvals required.
Steve B
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