Pipa Collectors Edition II English

Milestones
PIPA 2000-2012
12 years of PI PA
140
- Before PIPA was established: international victory Barcelona + name Gyselbrecht
- honesty, trust and quality are values which were then important and
are now key values in our company.
- Before PIPA was started: famous pigeon veterinary surgeon
Dr. Carlo Gyselbrecht with a worldwide reputation
- Racing pigeons all over the world: previous name of our site
(before Pigeon Paradise)
- Investment by Dr. Carlo Gyselbrecht, who financed the project at the time.
- Registration of www.pigeonparadise.com early 2000
- Registration of www.PIPA.be in December 2000
- Meeting with Martin Degrave in 2001
- Avian influenza in May 2003 - PIPA reported daily news about the influence
of the avian influenza on the racing pigeon sport in Europe. Many people
got to know PIPA in this way.
- Nikolaas, who graduated from university in June 2003, was able to work fulltime
for PIPA
- Fixed price pigeons (with self-made pictures) in 2003. One of the first ones
was a Chris Hebberecht pigeon. (Later on in this milestone overview Chris
Hebberecht’s name will return.)
- Thomas, Nikolaas’s brother, joined PIPA and made the auctions successful
- Getting in touch with Freddy Vandenheede in 2003: we built up a great
friendship which resulted in a racing partnership. Freddy later on started to
race together with his brother, which made them one of the best and most
famous middle distance and one day long distance fanciers. Up to now,
they are probably still the best.
- Early 2004: getting in touch with Luna Lai, who would turn PIPA into a real
brand name in China and Taiwan later on.
- Early 2005: tsunami in Asia - PIPA collected 100,000 euros!
- First edition of ‘Jewels of the Sky’, the most well-respected and best-performing
pigeon fanciers from Europe are invited once a year to select a group
of 5 to 12 pigeons. ‘Jewels of the Sky’ started in 2005. Up to now, we have
had the following editions: 05-06 , 06-07, 07-08, 08-09, 09-10, 10-11 and
now 11-12 (7th edition). It was a milestone. In the beginning, top fanciers
needed to be convinced to participate because the Internet was something
new. They were used to selling pigeons privately to brokers or directly to
fanciers. In the later editions of Jewels of the Sky it was a matter of prestige
and fanciers were insulted when they were not invited by us. PIPA changed
the way of selling pigeons, PIPA was a pioneer in this field. The suppliers
(fanciers) as well as the buyers benefitted from PIPA’s auctions because
transparency entered the market. There were no secrets anymore. In the
past, brokers sold pigeons for huge profits to the Far East and suppliers
would never know for which price their pigeons were exactly sold. Now they
do. Many top pigeon fanciers often thank us for what we have realised.
- First public auction organised in February 2006 by PIPA. We offered a group
of Chris Hebberecht pigeons. It was our first real intense cooperation with
Martin Martens, who would later on become our first employee in 2007.
- Milestone: we got in touch with the CEO of
Christies, the most exclusive art auction