Who Were They?

This carte de visite photograph carries no back mark or other identifying information, leaving the handsome soul to be lost to the ages as unknown. I am guessing at the decade 1880s for the vintage of the image but I could be off by 10 years or more. I really don’t know much about men’s fashions, and definitely not enough to give an educated guess. Women’s fashions were so distinctive, it’s relatively easy to pin down at least a decade. Sometimes you can spot something that didn’t exist prior to a certain time and went out of fashion before another certain time. But, men just seemed to muddle along, changing lapel widths and necktie fashions, but all of the basics can be seen year after year in relatively anonymity.