This strip is 100 years old, perhaps a bit more. If I remember the lore behind it, it was found folded, in a pocket.
The creasing and overall wear that it exhibits is something that nobody can deny - it appears to have taken a beating over the years.
That being the case, I would guess that if it had been five separate cards pasted together on a strip, at least one of these cards would have, by now, begun peeling away from its backing, or from the other cards. I'm unaware of any glue that could have been used in 1909 to paste these cards together that would have held up for 100 years while being subject to the abuse that this strip has taken over the years.
Coupled with the fact that two different people who have seen and held the actual strip outside of a holder and verified that it is one continuous strip seems to be fairly strong evidence.
This is, of course, not to denigrate the knowledge of some of the experts who have chimed in on this, but it seems that most of those who feel it's not a continuous strip have evaluated the item either from pictures, or from holding it while encased in a slab.
As for why colors are not consistent with the final issue, or why lines appear in places where we're not accustomed to seeing them, as someone who buys various printed materials every single day, there are dozens of reasons why a test, a proof, or a press sheet might look different than the final product. That's a detail that I don't find particularly odd at all, especially using 1909 printing technology.
-Al
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