For what its worth, the Culver archives had several examples of press photos from both the Gilliams Press Syndicate, Brown Brothers and Bain with pre-1910date stamps. The oldest date stamp I have personally seen on a press photo is 1906. However, it was not common practice to start dating images until the 1910's and even then it was up to the individual paper. In fact we know EXACTLY when the Detroit Free started date stamping their photos because the images in their archive not date stamped before 1919 have a "filed before 1919" stamp on the back. I would image some were not stamped but it is an interesting piece of photographic history to see that stamp. That Cobb photo looks like it "could" be original, but it is impossible to tell from a scan and easy to tell in person.
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