It may be possible that the strip is indeed "cobbled" together while at the same time being a single continuous strip. This is possible if you understand how these items were printed. The key to this is the lithographic transfer process. I am not going to explain it in this post but will provide a link to a site that I have been working on to explain how chromolithographs were printed in the mid 19th century up until the early to mid 20th century. If you read the making of a cigar label .pdf keep in mind that in lieu of the keyline drawing the halftone photo of the player with the border such as that of Wagner most certainly served as the key instead.
http://mjdalton.blogspot.com/