Heer Strange looking CCC?

[Wilco]

I am wondering if anybody has any thoughts on this one.

Here a photo of CCC in gold recipient Peter B?ckendorf:

The CCC he wears looks somewhat strange to me. Any thoughts on the type? Could this be a non-formal cloth version?

Any thoughts are welcome.

[Guest WAR LORD]

I am wondering if anybody has any thoughts on this one.

Here a photo of CCC in gold recipient Peter B?ckendorf:

The CCC he wears looks somewhat strange to me. Any thoughts on the type? Could this be a non-formal cloth version?

Any thoughts are welcome.

I think this is the elusive cloth form. A wonderful picture

[Wilco]

I think this is the elusive cloth form. A wonderful picture

Thats what it looks to me too. I also have had the suggestion this might be a retouched photo. But retouched or cloth version, both ways, the CCC looks kinda strange. It almost looks like the more rounded Luftwaffe version?

[Wilco]

Perhaps this detail photo gives any more clues

I have been looking at some more photos of CCCgold recipients. The rounded appearance of the centre piece seems not to be so uncommon and looks like being caused by the lighting and printing of the photo. Looking at the detail photo, it strikes me that it looks like the clasp is almost glued to the jacket, but also that could just be the way the photo was taken.

Edited December 2, 2008 by Wilco

[nesredep]

Hello!

Looks like cloth form to mee.Very rare Photo.

All the best

Nesredep

[Paul R]

I am surprised to see that he is only in the Private rankings!

[Wilco]

I am surprised to see that he is only in the Private rankings!

He wears his Unteroffizier rankings, the rank he had.

Edited December 2, 2008 by Wilco

[Tom D.]

Hi guys, here are my comments from the GCA thread:

William, this indeed is the best candidate I have ever seen for a cloth version of the CCC. Up to this point, there has been no photo ever found (except by Roger Honts, but he doctored that one up

Unless the clasp is laying on the chest at a weird angle, I don't think this is a metal clasp due to the simple fact that the top and bottom edges of the CCC in the picture are much flatter than what you see on the metal clasps. The grooved arrow heads stick out pretty far from the center of the clasp and are quite distinct in photographs (see my picture attached).

The circular area around the motif is also very interesting. If it is a metal clasp, these might be strings that were sown through the uniform to hold the clasp tight to the chest as the clasp tended to fall foward, and these may be distorting the look of the motif. Another example of this practice can be seen in my CCC book, page 139. There is no date of when Bochendorf was actually awarded the CCC in Gold, so my guess is that he DID NOT receive a Gold Presentation CCC which had the top hook, so he probably had a typical zink grade without tophook and would need string to hold the clasp firmly to the chest.

If this is NOT string around the central motif and the picture is indeed that of a cloth badge in wear, then I have no explanation for the circular area.

From a logical standpoint, a few things don't make sense:

1. If he prefered a cloth CCC, why would he be wearing the metal DK? Cloth DKs are well documented in photgraphs and must have been redily available to the front line soldiers as many CCC winners preferred these over the bulky metal ones as seen from the many photos of it in wear. Yet, he was able to find a CCC in cloth somehow, let alone it being a gold one.

2. Circluar area around the motif. There is no logical explanation for this, other than the strings I mentioned, which would NOT be needed for a cloth badge.

3. His ribbon bar is pushed off to the side. This is typical of soldiers that simply used the original ribbon bar loops to hold their CCC. If this was a cloth CCC that could be sown to the uniform, the logical thing would be to leave the ribbon bar where it was and sew the clasp above it, according to regs. The fact that he is wearing it improperly tells me it is not a simple mistake, but rather the convenience of using the original loops.

These aren't conclusive, but make me wonder if we are looking at a metal clasp that is skewed in the picture to look weird. Very interesting picture indeed, thanks for showing William!!

Tom

Edited December 3, 2008 by Tom D.

[Robin Lumsden]

Looks to me like a simple retouched photo....................the EK1 has also been retouched.

[Naxos]

Looks to me like a simple retouched photo....................the EK1 has also been retouched.

I agree with Robin - retouched.

If you look at the centre of the CCC you can see the Hoheitsadler (eagle) of the original image under the incorrect retouched circle around it.

[Wilco]

I do not agree with the circle suggestion. I have looked at many photo's of all three grades of the CCC. In many of the photos of the golden, and in lesser the silver, the lighting on photos does suggest this same vieuw and look circular also. This all happens on photo's that are not too sharp taken or ar overlighted.

Which does not mean I disagree this could be a retouched photo, but when retouched, why not use an image of a better qualitie? That should not have been to much of a difficulty when you look at the possible retouched EK1. Another doubt about the retouching is the way the ribbon bar is placed. That is not the common way to wear the bar when the CCC was not in place.

Again this all is not conclusive, but just adding to the questions. I am not convinced it is retouched, but I am also not shure it is not a retouched photo.

[Tom D.]

Interesting about the retouched photo Robin. That halo is indeed peculiar, I have never seen another CCC look like that in a photo. I must admit though that the rest of the clasp looks indeed like cloth, but that halo around it is VERY pecular. Robin, you say the EK is touched up too, how can you tell?

As far as the ribbon bar goes, he would be wearing the ribbon like this whether he was wearing a typical CCC metal badge (or a cloth one). So the retouched image would simply remove the metal look of the clasp, and replace it with a cloth looking one.

Tom

[Guest WAR LORD]

As to retouching. This would have been to the original picture. The picture shown has not been diditally inhanced. The question is begged why would one have done this at the time? If the original picture is avalable then it can easily be chequed.

[Guest Rick Research]

Nobody's ever seen original badly retouched Third Reich photos?

I have

This is not photoshop. This is not a joke. This is an actual 1944 promotion recycled photo from a large lifetime group that obviously never made it past the "proof" stage

for obvious reasons.

His Oberst boards are "painted" over and those tabs sure look "real," don't they just?

The "ghostly sheen" to the NKS (sorry, to me the CCC = Civilian Conservation Corps) is a sure tip off that what is there... was not there. The straight on light angle/lack of shadowing shows it was added by hand.

A NKS's wide and middle-bulged pin could not fit in the smaller loops made for ribbon bars-- though plenty of uniforms have been wrecked by people monkeying around trying to jam the wide broad pins through loops which are always too narrow and not far enough apart: ( ........|...|......... ) to have ever held one on a field tunic.