Answer Man finds where, oh where Nipper has gone

Has anyone asked about the large RCA dog that used to be on Route 29 in Fairfax? I don't think it's been there for 10 years. My wife suggested I ask The Washington Post. It was visible from the road and big enough for a parade float. I wish I'd taken a picture back in the day.

-- Sam Ackerman, Clifton

Nipper is the name of the huge dog, as it is the name of every canine mascot employed by the Radio Corporation of America, whether it be a tiny souvenir paperweight or a 14-foot fiberglass-over-metal statue.

Answer Man will get to the saga of the Merrifield Nipper, but first let us consider the pooch himself. Nipper was a stray black-and-white terrier adopted in England in the 1880s by Mark Barraud and named after his tendency to snap at peoples' legs. When Mark died in 1887, Nipper went to live with the owner's brother, Francis, a painter.

Captivated by the dog's reaction to the then-relatively new phonograph -- where did the sound come from? -- Francis painted a picture of Nipper, his head cocked near the trumpet of the sound machine. This would make a jolly good advertisement, Francis thought, and he shopped it around to audio concerns before the Gramophone Co. bit.

In 1900, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a trademark for the image, which had come to be known by the title "His Master's Voice." The Gramophone Co. gave Nipper's U.S. rights to the Victor Talking Machine Co., and RCA got the image when it bought Victor in 1929.

The Triangle Sign Co. of Baltimore made Nipper in 1954. It was placed atop the Russell Street headquarters building of D&H Distributing, an RCA distributor. D&H moved to Savage in 1976, leaving Nipper behind. (As anyone who has ever tried knows, moving a 1,700-pound dog statue and accompanying sheet-metal phonograph is not easy.)

It was then that Jim Wells swooped in. Wells was a Virginia amusements dealer and collector -- he's the person who brought the carousel to the Mall. He was entranced by Nipper. For six years, he pestered D&H with offers to buy the mighty pooch. In 1976, he finally persuaded D&H to let him have Nipper -- for $1.

Wells's coup incensed Baltimore officials, including Mayor William Donald Schaefer. Nipper was a Baltimore landmark, they said, and didn't belong in a front yard in Virginia. But Wells said he had acquired Nipper fair and square. He offered to trade it for a steam calliope that reportedly was gathering dust in a Baltimore warehouse.

"They never did find it," said Eva Wells, Jim's widow. (He died in 2001.)