The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Jerry, Your doing an awesome job on your Nipper. Thanks for the detailed instructions you sent. I wish I had the time to get to work on my Nipper as well but there's just too much going on at the moment to allow it. I'm sure that when I do get going on him I will have a lot of questions for you. Keep up the good work, can't wait to see the final result. Wes

DeeDee asked if I've been asked by Forum members why I don't have something better to do with my time.

Jerry B.

Nipper now has ears. If you look at original early glass eyed Nippers the ears appear to be quite thin. Most real dogs have thin ears. My attempt was to make thin ears like the early Nippers. I glued four layers of brown paper grocery bag paper together. The ears have the appearance I wanted.

Nipper is now in the "ghost stage" where all his details have been painted over. The eyes are the most difficult so I'll paint them first. The ears and collar are easy.

When I talked to Joan Rolfs I asked if it would be OK to copy the photo of the red Old King Cole label from their Nipper book. She said that would be fine so this Nipper is sporting a round oval Old King Cole label glued to the inside of the body as does their 9" original Nipper.

I printed a photo of the "as found" Nipper. On the back of the photo I wrote:

"Purchased 9" Nipper at the Orlando Phonograph sale for $25 in January 2017. I bought it as a challenge to see if this Nipper could be made presentable. The ears were missing The snout and part of the head were missing. The front legs were floppy. The back sides of both front legs were missing. The left rear foot and adjoining part of the body were missing. The red Old King Cole label on the inside of the body was replicated with permission from the Rolfs' Nipper book. This is an early Nipper from the 1920's. Nipper was repaired in August 2017 by Jerry Blais."

The above photo with list of work done will be placed inside Nipper along with one of my business cards.

Jerry Blais

Nipper is back and I think he's happy. My son, Tyler, painted the features and I am very pleased with the project. Jerry Blais

I love a happy ending. Nice work and nice pack.

Looks great! Glad to see something so damaged get such a good restoration.

What a nice pack of Nippers.

As long as the pack of Nippers don't decide that Edison is a fire hydrant he'll be OK with it... after all, were it not for Nipper he never would have made diamond discs or needle types.

I like the semi- maniacal expression on Nipper's face next to the glass case. Reminds me of Billy, my little guy, when you find that magical spot on the back of his neck during a scratch!

I like that dog as well. It's like he thinks he doesn't belong and he snuck in and joined the pack. Jerry

Nice job Jerry . You have a nice collection of different nippers. Tom B