As far as I know these are safety bicycles probably from the late 1880s. That’s pretty late for an ambrotype, especially so as it appears to be an American image – at first I thought it was a map, but actually it’s a copy of The New York Herald.

No date or other text is readable, but from the cover layout and with some painstaking research I guess it should be possible to identify the exact date.

Sixth plate.

via Flickr http://flic.kr/p/vdFNrD