Al,
The wrapper is definitely a legitimate 1949 Bowman variation, however it has not been established that it contained exclusively the PCL cards.The closest we all came to a definitive source was longtime photographer and collector, the late Frank Caruso who grew up in Olympia , Washington. He collected the major league Bowmans in '49, and while visiting his aunt, who lived in the Green Lake district of Seattle during the summer of 1949, he purchased a few packs of cards at a local market. This pack contained exclusively PCL cards. He was more focused on the fact that these cards featured "Local" players rather than the major leaguers that he was accustomed to purchasing 60 miles south in Olympia. The wrapper was a blur to him. Frank was / is the only longtime collector that I ever encountered that bought both the major league issue and the PCL (exclusive) packs in 1949.
I have pursued these cards for nearly 50 years, talking not only with longtime collectors, but those who originally saved these cards, their families (& noted where they lived at the time) and dealers / resellers who had acquired groups of these cards. There has never been a wrapper found within any of these original collections. Ted Zanidakis & I collaborated on an article nearly 30 years ago, when more original sources were available and could not locate any such person that found a PCL-exclusive collection which contained a wrapper. The variation wrapper existed in the hobby prior to our article, but currently remains a mystery.
As Ted shared in the article there were PCL cards mixed in with major league players in packs distributed midway through the 1949 season , which were marketed near Philadelphia, Bowman's headquarters . It is also a possibility that the variation wrapper could have been used on those 'mixed' packs as well. We just do not know.
Many people, including myself, would 'like' it to be a PCL exclusively wrapper, but without a solid provenance or paper trail, anyone making a claim to it's definitive usage should be suspect.
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