Can anyone help identify this photo?
 

http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/g...psho5vurky.jpg

Can any member assist in identifying this photograph? It's marked on the back '1914- so visit me, father' (in German).
This was recently up for sale on ebay.

Thank you. Regards Pete

Re; I communicated with the seller before it sold, an he knew nothing about the photo, except written in the album it came from, it said, "Richthofen bi-plane"... My guess it could be Ilse sitting the plane, (manfred's sister) and possibly Manfred's parents standing below her..... The other possibility, is that it could be Lother standing on the wing, as it does not look like Manfred..... If the date is correct, that puts Ilse at age 24.. If the aircraft can be identified, then the years that it was built will help confirm the date... The paint job on wings seems to be quite shiney. It seems unusual for plane to be in long grass, and there is the distinctive chimney and building in the background.... Apparently an offer of 50 euros was accepted for the photo, (not the advertised 249-00 euro).. Item number on EBay is -- 400868000211 -- clicking on photo, blows it up.......

The plane looks very much like a Rumpler C.V11.... The first flight of these was 1917, so the date on the reverse side of photo, of 1914 will be in-correct, unless the plane is something else, of an earlier vintage.... ... Alan.

For me it is a Rumpler CI which first appeared during 1915

National markings...
 

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The national markings are of the "October 1916 to March 1918" period. So the photo is dating from the latter half of the war.

After 29.10.1916 the white rectangular fields of former times were eliminated and all black crosses were to be surrounded with a 50mm white border. This width varied slightly with some manufacturers.
:apickel:
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Hello, Volker Nemsch.... ....That is a good comment...... The engine looks like a Benz (BZ 1V)........ Would that be correct?........ Alan.

Since the seller had the wrong date for this aircraft, my guess is he also had the wrong identification of it being a Richthofen aircraft and the price seems to be a bit high for such a photo.

Selling and knowing…
 

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Just type “RICHTHOFEN” on eBay and you will get interesting results.

On German ebay the huge majority consists of things in relation with later German aviation units named after the WW1-ace. There is some other – and often weird – stuff and only a few items really have a connection with Manfred von Richthofen, as we would like to see (and to buy for a reasonable price). Below are examples for the "other" or "weird" stuff:

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Limitierte-Ed...item2ee69b4a53

http://www.ebay.de/itm/TShirt-Roter-...item5d489df44e

http://www.ebay.de/itm/CD-RICHTHOFEN...item1a05f0b5ba

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Manfred-von-R...item2588af0996

Strange, isn’t it? A simple, wooden splinter from a Roland C.II probably has more connection with MvR than these examples.
:wacko:

And even if they are selling some WW1 postcards or photos there we are facing two categories of sellers. Often the term “Richthofen” is part of the “selling strategy” of the seller, sometimes it is just lack o background knowledge (a biplane with a German cross on it has to be a “Richthofen aircraft”).
:apickel:
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Thanks for the responses, keep them coming. :)

Pete, Manfred does not appear to be in this photo, but the lass sitting, does look like "Ilse".. and it could be her parents in the fore-ground, but the clarity of photo, is a little hard to be sure....... In this thread, Volker Nemsch has indicated the year of the plane, to be about 1917/1918, (or later), so that means Ilse would be about 27 years of age in this photo....... I hope you can get other comments to match this........... Regards, Alan.