Nostalgia - Nipper

Some years ago when I still did the "Finds of the week" posts, I had some called "I'm a collector" in which I shared vintage items. Over time my collections have mostly stopped growing due to different reasons, but they are still there and still loved. I also have vintage items, some inherited, some gifts, some from fleamarkets, some more interesting than others. So I thought it could be fun to share some of them every, now and then and tell their story.

Nipper has been living on my cupboard for many years since we brought him home from a fleamarket.

He was not a bargain, but we fell in love with him at first sight, went away from him, came back, circled him and finally gave up resisting his pull.
I have to admit not remembering where we got his little brother who lost an ear in an accident, no doubt cat-related.

There was a Nipper in our house before him, one the ex had also fallen in love with early on in our Steiff collecting times, only he wasn't called Nipper, but Electrola Fox.
He doesn't live here anymore, but I still have a picture of him.

No wonder he loved him, he's really cute, isn't he?

Who was Nipper, however, and how did he become so famous that there are loads of collectibles of him out there - and one or the other giant statue?!

Photo of Nipper

Nipper was the dog of Mark Barraud, a theater scene painter, born in Bristol in 1884 (Nipper, not Mark). Although he's often called a fox terrier (see Steiff), he really seems to have been a terrier mix and he got his name from his habit to nip people's legs. I have no doubt that he was still a very good boy, though.
He was good enough for Barraud's brother Francis, a painter, to take in Nipper when Mark died in 1887, but later Mark's widow asked to take Nipper back to keep her company and took him to Kingston upon Thames where the avid ratter died and was buried in September 1895.

Eventually Francis painted a picture of him (the building at 126 Piccadilly even has a blue plaque today) and registered it with the name "Dog looking at and listening to a Phonograph".
Some sources claim Barraud then offered the painting to Edison Bell for advertisement while others say the phonograph company was never specified in any remaining communication. Whatever the truth is, the offer was refused.
Someone suggested to put in a golden brass trumpet instead of the black phonograph horn for a more pictorial effect, so Barraud went to The Gramophone Company to borrow such a trumpet. He showed a photograph of the painting and was asked if he change the phonograph to a gramophone which he agreed to if the company bought the painting.

Photograph of the original painting with phonograph
(public domain via Wikimedia Commons)

After some back and forth, the company sent a machine round to Francis and history was made.

But did Nipper actually listen to recordings of "His (dead) Master's Voice" as you can often read?
Actually, sources don't agree on that information, either. It seems Barraud's niece said that Mark actually never made a recording of his voice, but that Nipper had often been sitting at the door like this instead as if waiting for his master.
There were also rumors that the shiny surface Nipper is sitting on is Mark's coffin, but all the sources I browsed or read agree on that really just being a tale.
So what about "His Master's Voice"? Had the creator of this slogan really being Francis Barraud or was it indeed the winner of a slogan contest? Who knows? There were even several people claiming to be the original painter.

The altered and final version of Barraud's painting
(public domain via Wikimedia Commons)

Barraud painted several more Nippers for different company offices.

Speaking of different companies, you may hear more than one name in connection with the Nipper logo, that is due to developments and copyright transfers in the music industry - RCA in the USA, Victor in Japan, and EMI in Europe until they sold the trade mark to the independent HMV stories (HMV for His Master's Voice).

There are Nipper statues in different places connected with these companies, one of them looking very similar to mine, a 5.5 meter fiberglass statue at The Old Vinyl Factory, a site that used to belong to EMI.
And of course Nipper is on gramophone needle tins, needle sharpeners, key rings, fabric, matchboxes, pins, and much more, there are whole books on thousands of items.
Oh, and he's on magnets - on my fridge for example ;-)

Today RCA's Nipper even has a little puppy brother, Chipper.

If you want to dive in a bit deeper, I recommend the last publication in my reference list.

Sources:
London Remembers - Nipper (buried)
London Remembers - Francis Barraud & Nipper
Wikipedia - English and German
Erik Østergaard - The History of Nipper and His Master's Voice
My London article from July 14, 2024
RCA - Nipper and Chipper
The story of 'Nipper' and the 'His Master's Voice' picture painted by Francis Barraud - compiled by Leonard Petts (1973 when Petts was archivist at EMI)