McIntosh Allardyce Unknown Mystery Photo - Can anyone Restore and Date Please

[Handypandy]

Clean up from me....

[familydar]

I'm not convinced the photo is as old as it purports to be.  Face almost looks photoshopped although I accept it can't be.  Someone might have played with the neg though.

Beribboned bike with shiny chrome, rod brakes, lamp bracket and a bell isn't fit to be ridden anywhere - look at that flat rear tyre.  So a photographer's prop with a child dressed up as some sort of character.  No background, shame because that might help with dating, but perhaps lends support to my theory that it's a composite photo.

Jane :-)

[ryan37]

I did notice earlier the flat tyre

If it helps I looked again and the back of the photo
Is post card type print

Your theory is interesting thanks for sharing as I have no experience I’m just learning

Ryan

[ryan37]

Thanks handy pandy

Great work

I appreciate your excellent contribution

Ryan.

[familydar]

I've taken another look at the original image and what I took for chrome could be nickel.  Chrome first made an appearance in the 1930s I think.  But the lamp bracket doesn't look right for an acetylene lamp, so the bike is probably mid 1930s onwards, and I wouldn't expect a photographer's studio to have a new(ish) bike solely for use as a prop (and flat tyre suggests it didn't serve a dual purpose).  Girl's specs look quite big, almost NHS John Lennon ones.

Any clues from the reverse?  Affix stamp here, write message here, name of studio?

[ryan37]

I will
Take another look in an hour or so
When I’m
Home
And get back to you

Many thanks

Ryan

[ryan37]

Post card

Address

And stamp area is marked to the top right


That’s what’s on the back

Ryan

[Henry7]

The handlebars are what we used to call the "sit-up-and-beg" type, and the hidden saddle could be at any height. 

I last saw these strings from the back axle out to the mudguard - to keep skirts out of the moving spokes - on ladies' bikes, in Germany in the early 1950s.  I hadn't seen such things before: they'd gone out of fashion in Britain long before then.   

[Treetotal]

Interesting photo....it looks a bit theatrical to me. The hair looks like it could be a wig...I also think the child is a boy dressed to look like an older woman.
Carol