How The Tippler Got Its Name

By WILLIAM G. HOFFMAN, North Linthicum, Md.
When written: American Pigeon Journal May 1959

Some years ago I had the pleasant privilege of exchanging quite a few
letters with one John Van Der Wel, who at that time was the Secretary of the
Netherlands Tippler Club. He used to write about every conceivable topic
concerning Tipplers. Like all Dutchmen, he was a very serious person, but
not entirely without a sense of humor. He once wrote: "You Americans have an
international reputation for coining catch phrases and trick words. Why
don't you think up a more fitting name for the Tippler pigeon? Homers are
expected to home; Rollers must roll; the Flying Tumblers are supposed to
tumble, but the poor little Tippler, who dares to tipple, winds up in the
soup pot! Why don't you give it some thought and see what can be done about
it?" All of this, of course, leads up to the title question, How the Tippler
got Its Name?
For many years the Tippler was easily distinguishable from other breeds by
its own peculiar markings, black-tipped flights, black-tipped tail, black
beak, black toenails, black eye cere and black ticking in the head and neck.

Some fanciers insist that it was from these markings that the breed derived
its name. I recall the late Ralph Reeves explaining to me twenty years ago
when he threw out my beautiful yellow prints at a lawn show: "The Tippler
must be black- tipped in all its extremities, flights, tail, beak and toes.

That's where it gets the name, from the tipping!" Many present day fanciers
still hold to the same opinion, and some of them kept Tipplers long before I
was born. Could be they are right.
History reveals that the name "Tippler" existed for some time before it came
to be applied to a specific breed of bird, and instead was used to describe
the flying style of one branch of the Flying Tumbler family. Ludlow, the
celebrated fancier, painter and author of the chapter, "Common.- and Flying
Tumblers," in Robert Fulton's "The Book of Pigeons", enumerates the various
air performers of that day according to style of flight and also according
to markings. Of the latter, he lists seventeen categories of birds with dark
flights and does not mention anything that resembles a light print. Of the
Tippler as a flyer, he writes: "Then there are others (chiefly in Lancashire
I think) who believe the nearest realization of merit is that of a flight of
good 'Tipplers', such as perform, in a compact mass, their single evolutions
with perfect accuracy and uniformity; such as fly high, are always busy, and
endure long flights with comparative ease."
Job Ofield, in "The Flying Tippler," quotes an elderly fancier, Mr. Pownall
of Macclesfield, as remembering the birds kept by his father fifty or more
years earlier (1875-1880) as being "blues, greys and bronzes nearly black."

Wedgewood, in "The Tippler for Exhibition and Flying," presents a picture of
the first Macclesfield Tip- pier introduced into Lincolnshire, but fails to
mention the date. The bird is either a blue or a grey with some trace of
mottling. In type as well as in marking, it presents a more unTippler-like
appearance than many of the more recently developed long flying types. All
of this, it would seem to me indicates that the name "Tippler" predates all
the characteristics of the breed as we know it today.
There is still another explanation of how the bird acquired its name. This
one perhaps is a bit far-fetched, but I like it. According to the legend,
there once lived in a small village in the English Midlands, a fellow whose
life was ru1ed by two all-consuming weaknesses, high flying pigeons and John
Barleycorn. In an American town of similar size he probably would have been
known as the village drunk. But his fellow-townsmen, being polite folk by
nature, when they found it necessary to speak of him at all, referred to him
simply as "the tippler." One day a fancier from another part the country was
passing through the village, and his attention was caught by a kit of
pigeons of an unfamiliar type flying in the vicinity. Addressing a nearby
villager, he asked: "Friend, what pigeons are those soaring above yonder
heath? "The villager, thinking he had asked "Whose pigeons?", replied, "Oh,
they are the tippler's." The traveler obtained some of the birds and took
them back to his own district where he introduced them as "Tipplers", a name
that has stuck to this day! - Reprinted from May 1959 issue.