Photo date help, please

[Wooler57]

Hi,

I’d be grateful for any thoughts on the date of this photograph.  Could it be a wedding photo (he is wearing a buttonhole), but why the straw in the foreground?

Any help welcome,

Ian

[braw]

Clothes look American to me or a uniform of sorts and its does not look like straw it could be wool

[duckboy]

It is to dense to be hay or straw and wool is usually rolled up as a fleece I wonder if it is cotton, probably represents his trade or calling, but what trade or calling? It does look a wedding picture.

[braw]

Its not cotton as cotton when picked/harvested looks like fluffy cotton wool.

[ScouseBoy]

Could it be Horse Hair?

[Katharine75]

could be later 1870s - earlier 1880s.
Rustic backdrops, rounded corners of Carte-de-visite, style of hat and jacket.

[braw]

He is also wearing a ring on the small finger of the right hand,will this help

[ScouseBoy]

Photo taken by Newcastle branch.

What is he holding in his hand?                Could it be something to do with horses?

[duckboy]

It's a bowler hat he is holding in his hand.