| Author: Jan Lombard | Title: Collecting Pigeon Rings as a Hobby |
| Date: 2004-09-28 11:29:48 | Uploaded by: webmaster |
|
Collecting pigeon rings is gaining popularity across the world. There are many reasons for this: The pigeon sport is practiced in a very large number of countries. This puts a collector into contact with collectors from a number of nationalities, increasing his circles of friendship and his knowledge of the rest of the world and it’s people. The popularity of the pigeon sport (be it racing, showing; roller competition of the tippler sport) ensures a large supply of different rings on an annual basis, because rings get dated with the year. Rings are small, colorful and do not take up a lot of space. Because all pigeon rings are basically of the same size, it is very easy to display a collection. Rings are interesting as they carry a lot of information on them. You do not need a lot of energy for this hobby. Therefore it can be practiced by almost anybody, irrespective of his or her health or age. Because of their small size and weight, it is fairly inexpensive to mail rings to any destination in the world, making this hobby very affordable. Most pigeon fanciers do not mind to give you their surplus rings. Local rings that are abundant in your area are in demand in the rest of the world. Lastly the decreasing of the global village by the Internet, makes it possible to locate pigeon fanciers and collectors in a fast and inexpensive way.
Some collectors collect only racing homer rings. Such collectors are normally not interested in fancy (show) pigeon rings; nor in rings for roller pigeons or high fliers (also known as tipplers). It is my view that such a collection is not nearly as interesting as a general collection that includes pigeon rings of all types. Some collectors collect only one ring per year from each country. This will ensure that their collections grow at a slow pace that they can handle, but it will limit their fun as far as I am concerned. There is a large number of different clubs in certain countries, who each issue rings with their own initials on. A good example is the American Union in the United States of America that has over 900 different clubs. If a collector collects just one AU ring per year he will end up with maximum of 20 different dated rings from that country from a 20-year period. If you collect one per year from each club instead, the potential number of rings that the AU will issue in 20 years will be at least 18000, and this number excluded specially issued rings.
The author collects all the small differences, as long as the letter or number has a particular meaning to indicate a different club or even ring size. If the letter of number forms part of an alphanumerical system to number the rings he will not collect it. The only problem is to find out what the particular letter of number means. This information is not readily available. His experience is that all the clubs do not even keep proper records. They may at best be able to give answer on a ring that is a few years old. Clubs come & go. Some clubs do not last long.
Because of the short life span of some clubs, and the large variety of ring initials caused by the popularity of the sport on a worldwide basis and the lack of information it became necessary to draw up a list of all known initials found on pigeon rings. This booklet is the result of this need (also available on the website). The author is well aware of the fact that it is far form complete and that there may be many errors in it. The list was compiled from the author’s own collection as well as from collection lists from a number of collectors from across the globe. Although the author is fairly new to this hobby, some of these correspondents have over 20 years experience in collection rings.
If a reader knows of any ring initial that do not appear on the list, or spot any mistakes, he/she is requested to get into contact with the author at mar_rings@hotmail.com or jlombard@tsb.toyota.co.za or send him a letter to: Jan Lombard, P.O. Box 12058, Brandhof 9324, Republic of South Africa.
The author hopes to publish this booklet in future (available online), but believe that it is not complete enough at this stage. Your input and help is needed.
Jan Lombard
|
| Coo time for a brew!...Where next? |
| Lets hear what you've got to say on this issue.... or any other infact! Post your comments in the Message Forum. |
| You've seen the light... bang a new idea!!... Tell the world, Write an article for Pigeonbasics.com, email into the webmaster at webmaster@pigeonbasics.com. |
|
|
