I think you should always be able to at least access the back of a photo on a piece like this. One of the reasons I usually always stay away from framed "vintage" photos.
There was a huge boxing auction back in the mid-90's. I think it was the Duke Hott collection. If I'm remembering correctly I think the auction company who handled the collection nearly went bankrupt because they bought it outright and grossly overpaid for it.
Anyways, there was a lot of great stuff in this auction. Unfortunately there also ended up being a lot of bogus stuff. Mostly of the vintage large format photo variety. A lot of experienced collectors and dealers realized they got burned when they started removing the photos from the frames and getting a better look at them. They turned out to be mostly later generation photos and reprints.
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