Corps Franconia Tübingen
Click here to view it larger.
What intrigued me about this little carte de visite image is the young man’s outfit, the unusual hat, the sash-like strip across his chest, and what appears to be a tie pin with letters I can’t make out. I was having a hard time trying to figure the ensemble out, when I took a chance on searching for other images by the same photographer (W. Hornung of Tübingen, Germany, who I believe to be Wilhelm Hornung, 1834-1884). Sure enough, I found other young men dressed similarly, such as here. And most helpful was the one here, a page that identified the look as belonging to members of the Corps Franconia Tübingen, a sort of fancy university fraternity still in existence today. In fact, on their current website here, you can see a picture of men in the same sashes looking at pictures of men dressed like our guy. The only difference (and this threw me off at first), is that our guy seems to have done something non-regulation to the shape of his hat, pinching it at the front in a way that gives it a different shape. Otherwise it seems the same. Also, here’s the back, which gives us a bit more information. It tells us that the photographer is also a painter (“Maler”), and it has an inscription that indicates the photo is being given for Christmas of 1882 (“zu Weinachten 1882”). Incidentally, when held in my hand, that inscription looked like it was written in pencil. But once I enlarged it, I could see it was written using a pen with an extremely fine tip. [click to enlarge]
Pics of Then 
Interesting history. The fraternity has a really nice house. Your research is thorough and enlightening!
Thanks! I sat with this one for a while before figuring out what his uniform represented. I was lucky there were other examples of it online from the same photographer. And yes, they have a beautiful place.