hawk

Jake your right, besides, the craigs list killer tattoo guy probably bought his kit off EBay with the funds from the check he gets for ADHD, ha! The guys HD was paid for by the Dept of Rehabilitation Services for his "stress control" and he got the tattoo "guns" covered to handle his "anger management issues", poor guy probably had a Dad that didn't find him sexually attractive and that probably started the whole pity party. Poor fellow autist

Congratulations Deb! Hope to hear it in 18 more years on yer 50th.

Dues you've paid are dues well noted and unknown to those with few years of experience as the whole meal has been a long strange trip.

Hope you and Don are livin the dream for many more years to come.

And Jesus Wept....

I'm sure it is serious and what is more serious is how some of the Gen. Pop will consider that kind of work and environment to be some sort of "standard". On a daily basis we will get people in the shop who tell of "friends" they have that tried to talk them into going to such scratchers. People like that are tearing us down and the legit shops will be the ones getting the stink eye for it from the Gen Pop and the Health Dept.

I wonder if the guy got the EBay kit for Christmas. It reminds me of a customer I had in my chair who had a Brother in Law that was a "good drawer" and he made the comment that he and his Wife had purchased a "Professional Tattoo Kit" from EBay for him last Christmas, I asked "How much is a professional tattoo kit off EBay/" He replied "200 dollars plus shippin", I had a laugh off of the "plus shippin" comment but that was a few years ago now and who is to say that the guy either gave it up as soon as he wore out the needles or ran out of ink and there wasn't a Family member that restocked him the next Christmas, ha! Maybe he's working in shop owned by a tavern owner, I'm seeing allot of that going on, enough to change the adage that "Good tattoos aren't cheap and cheap tattoos aren't good", I'm seeing plenty of scratcher grade work coming out of so called "professional tattoo shops" for big money and the people act proud to display them and in some cases defend them with the "I didn't think it was half bad" not understanding that it makes it only half good.

It's the old story that if somebody learns only three months of piano lessons and goes on to teach only three months of piano lessons and those students go on to teach three months and so on, then we can all expect that in 10 years the world would be full of bad piano players. I got a pair of pliers but it don't make me a dentist!

I have even had times that I felt the heat from the person sporting the bad tattoo from one of those people because I didn't or refused to apprentice that person, like it was my fault that they had a crappy attempt at tattooing on their arm.

The artist's are damned all the way around by these people scratching away, Health Dept., CDC statistic's, and ultimately the general population forming the idea and opinion that what these people do in their trailer court is "tattooing".

Forgive them for they know not what they do or Broken knuckles can't tattoo?

Honestly, whatever floats yer boat but the yellow eyes may have yer Doctor checking for Hep.

I've always hated the opinionated ladies who didn't need the breast implants of silicone or saline that for some reason just can't figure out how others get tattooed, the same kind of ladies who prefer to call it "Permanent eyeliner" instead of having "tattooed eyeliner" and refer to our kind as "Those people". Ashes to ashes and dust to dust but reach deep down and you'll find her bust, ha! Crazy thing when somebody can ID a headless body from the serial numbers from the implants (remember to burn the sacks guys). Jebus, it just occurred to me that there are cases of people doing life in prison who had breast implants purchased by the taxpayer, wow! Too Much Information! I guess that trumps a blue eye any day.

Sailor Sid was very proud to have a pic of a dick in his ear, what a guy, he was posing like holding a candlestick phone up to his ear, hell he was a happy guy who had a ball (no pun intended) so who am I to judge.

Seeing some crazy stuff out there in the body mod dept. but it begs the question asking if there may ever be a profit to be had in "Ritualistic Tribal Castration", may just be the easiest buck to ever make, set up a spring loaded meat cleaver bolted to a butcher block board, get a tribal tape to play, "Umballa! UmBalla! Shooom!" Funds up front of course.

If it makes ya feel good then do it!

Hey Rick, yer history lesson sucks with the "Huck Spaulding was the originator of the cheap china import" comment, the only thing they ever imported has been the pre-made needles on the bar just like everybody has been selling except Spaulding has an exclusive that makes theirs. S&R has never had their stuff sent out for and their newest line is entirely made in house.

As to Huck selling to "anybody", Stan and Walter Moskowitz of S&W Tattoo Supply sold from their adds for 29.95 back in the day. Charlie Wagner, Percy Waters, Owen Jensen, Frisco Bill of the Chicago tattoo Supply Co., Coastal, Bicknee and many others sold through Popular Mechanics and other publications in their time to anybody with the funds. Mail order supply for tattoo supplies dates back to 1902!

Bill Moyer and Jeff Lawyer are second and third generation machine builders and deserve a little more respect than this. Mike Malone built off of Huck's machines, Paul Rogers ordered up over 250 frames to build off of.

As to Huck not being popular with the few who went against him in the business of selling tattoo supplies, yes there are hard feelings. S&R didn't get so big by selling inconsistent cheap anything without standing behind what they produced and they set the example and the stage for the competition they have now in catalog form and factory in the US.

I guess I do mean to rant when somebody kicks an American Company when we are seeing 50 dollar kits sold on EBay and the location/source sez on the side bar "Beijing China" and the scratchers are stocking up, hell the swashdrives are into a 4th generation of the design, Eikon power supplies are coming from China but so is allot of crap in my livingroom, kitchen and car. But just to reiterate, Spaulding machines are entirely cast and built in the USA.

Ed Young beat Stan Moskowitz's time of 4 hours doing the Battle Royal and did it in 3. Conney Island Freddy Grossman took 11 to do Jack Dracula's. Ed did it at his regular pace but that piece in outline alone is like the death of a thousand cuts and will hurt yer hand doing it, he shook it out and went for the shading and finished it all within 3 hours. Ed's back piece was don by Scott Harrison and Scott took 3 hours and 45 minutes for the full back size Rose of No Mans Land and that was soo long ago I can't recall the year, Scott did it in my shop and when I walked in Ed had a tapped look I have never seen since on his face. Best part of getting tattooed is when the operator sez "We're Done", ha!

Dang Lizzie, almost a hundred???? I remember in 1983 in Taronto there was D's Adventure Tattoo and Empire Tattoo with Tatu Manotu as the owner, both shops on Queen street and the basement shop of the old fella people knew as The Chinaman", wow have things changed!

As to the shop owner thing, it's burning down the industry, "Boutique" shops with everything from bar owners to somebody who viewed something on the net as to what "expected earnings" come form tattoo shops simply buying into the industry.

But not to worry, trends rise and fall and come back around but to do good tattooing and being true to a customer base will win out should the "image" of tattooing burn to the ground from these jackwagons.

There are the areas of the past where it reverted back to what it was before the trends and always there were those who held fast and kept busy. The pisser of it all is that those shop owners will move onto something else and toss our baby back at us like an over the hill abused hooker who once was our kid Sister, like a neighborhood bully who took off with a kids bicycle to return it only after it was broken, but back in our hands it will return.

Look how things exploded in NYC in the 50's, the easiest solution was to ban it after it came to be too large to handle and regulate, underground for nearly forty years it opened up again but this time starting out with regulation and revenue that everybody could deal with, this is not to mention how it exploded and there were the 3 month shop locations with people no learned in tattooing taking every customer to the cleaners or dermatologist capitalizing on it's new infancy just to grab the buck and move out. But holding onto what is ours and standing our ground when the time comes that the general pop may turn from the reality program consuming idiots that bring us their money now to becoming a disrespectful lot wishing they hadn't followed a trend, it will then bring those who hang in there a wealth of property from the shop owner/proprietor magnate that dumps their "investment idea", flash, chairs, mirrors, tables, lamps, and equipment for everyone! Pennies on the dollar!

And most gratifying of all will be that we will still have the customer base we built if not the second or third generation of those customers simply from doing honest good tattooing through all that time.

Tattooing isn't just the "Americana" Norman Rockwell painted, it rolls up and down from sub culture to pop culture historically but part of our culture just the same and never in our history has it ever "left the building", the trend may have "shot it's load" as Tuttle so eloquently put it, but if it's what we do, then we will have work.

Also, I see allot of people who came from the art school area that are doing as well if not better selling their artwork. As overcrowded as it gets, there is still areas for extra income. Reminds me of Walter Cleveland, traveled in the hay days and owned shops in several locations but when times were when he had few coming through the door, he went to part time work at a saw mill, zipped the fingers of his Left hand off, he was a lefty, learned to tattoo right handed by redrawing all his flash with his right and got back to it! Now that is drive to do what you do!

The way I see it is this, these people coming onto the scene with all the EBay import stuff and their scratchers making Doctors and Dermatologists rich in a field that is practically impossible to institutionalize will wither away with the trend, we will have to swallow the blame of their invention until it comes around again in a form we can't predict, but tattooers true to the trade will still eat. The blame we swallow is the trouble they will or are causing that's hurting the reputation that so many worked hard to elevate from what it was years before they came on the scene.

Damn if it don't play like a broken record, but when we were playing records it was Milton Zeis School of Tattooing days, now we are using "Media Player" and look at the amount of 40 hour classroom diploma toting "Professional Tattoo Artist" we have now, cranked out every two weeks like some checkbook biker wearin their authorized leather clown outfit and callin themselves "Bikers", ha! And we all know that a new bike and leather outfit don't make you a biker no more than a self respecting S&M catalog would carry "soft cuffs", ha!

Damn, little did I know that when I was doing interviews talking about how it's not just for sailors anymore that I was tradin sub culture customers for yuppie scum wanting a Kanji on their wrist. I didn't know how big of a plate I needed for all the words I'd have to eat.........

Sorry Lizzie if I ramble off topic, but just one more thing, I enjoy having fun with some of the people who start talking the talk of getting into or buying into this business, like ask those that think it's their direction because they are "really great drawers" to define MRSA, ha! As for the people who buy into it and are NOT loving of the life, they are the train wreck waiting to happen and will be their own undoing, just wait for the time to pass to split up their gear.

Ron Ackers on the left pic tattooing the Lady.

Percy left Detroit in 1939 and went back to Anniston. I have a nice photo that was sent to me of Waters standing beside his auto with his Daughter and another little girl about the same age (around five years of age), she was his Daughters playmate, namely "Betty" and she is still alive and provided that photo to a friend of mine who sent it on to me. Mud on the tires and all, I suspect he probably traveled back and forth like most anybody who's Family has a "Home Town", I'm sure exile from Anniston couldn't keep him from showing up for Christmas and I don't know how long the "thrown out" or "ran off" story has ran or even where it came from, seems nobody has anything written other than re spoken tales in print by people who heard the tale like the "telephone game" you speak of. I have heard lots of things like he was blind when he died but I can't prove or deny such without the hard facts.

The fact remains that Percy went back and kept going on with the supply business until he passed in '52, he bought up Frisco Bill Moore's molds in 1944 as he could see a demand for the equipment coming due to the War and could have more molds to pour when he needed them and for the most part they were very similar copies of what Percy made as Frisco started his supply business in the 30's when Percy was doing well already in Detroit, so if you find a Frisco Bill machine frame with Percy Waters coils and the thing is chrome plated and a bronze composition, that was Percy's doing after Bill passed away.

Thanks for the info on the Jensen letter, a real treasure and all the more reason to visit such a grave site and pay my respects. Jensen was certainly a "rounder" in his day with lots of locations to his credit. I have a letter from Jensen that states when Bert arrived to look over CA and bought some property and what Barr's was doing and how much he was tattooing at that time, even provides more info as to how Dottie had passed that year, how old Owen Jr. was and how Wagner and Waters had passed in the months before, all in a two page letter and very informative. There is allot of info out there if people take the time to dig, like who Owen's first Wife was and where she is buried, I'm certain that people care it's just very time consuming and somewhat trivial to others. Thanks for sharing Shane!

Holy shit hawk, THANK YOU! That was fucking amazing! Where the hell do you get this stuff!? Are you Chuck Eldridge? :D I want to be you when I grow up. Or know what you know. Because I always knew I dont know shit, but now it was proven! :D

Petri,

Glad you liked the read and I hope it answered some of your questions. Also, I'm in no way a comparison to C. W. Eldridge, He's the man! You will never find anyone more knowledgeable, or more importantly, impartial and neutral in needing an answer. The literature the Book Mistress provides is true treasure for us all, literally pennies on the hundred dollar bill for tattoo history and info.

The info people can find through good books is worthless if we people don't read them, I'm guilty myself, spent years trying to figure out something and all I had to do was read the book somebody told me to buy back when and I would have had the answer if I hadn't set it on the shelf just to brag of my library. This is to say that there is not much new under this Sun and reading instead of looking at them pictures will gain people tons of knowledge. C.W.Eldridge is a living encyclopedia of knowledge and I'm certain that he knows even more secrets of the personal lives than I do, there isn't much company that he hasn't kept and he listened to those people when they spoke and wasn't out for the handshake photo, not to mention all the shit he swam through in all his days. Example; I once believed that Bert Grimm's last machine for lineing that he was using when he passed was the heavy Jensen Special converted to a swing gate, Mr. Eldridge told me that it was one of the Jensen specials that were cast in aluminum for Bob Shaw, I asked "are you sure?" he replied "Yes, I held it in my hand", ha! That's what I call the strait dope on a matter some wouldn't pursue, I was under the illusion that Bert needed a heavy machine to keep that hand steady, I was wrong but thank gawd there was someone who knew the truth so that I couldn't go on telling others about what I believed at the time.

I have tried hard to convince some through the years about some of the points I have studied and found myself wasting my breath as some were too busy with making the quick dollar than to stop and dabble in what is still unknown to them, like how people stare down the machine and not the power supply, that's like having a mopar hemi and runnin cheap gas in it and wondering why it's not getting it's estimated MPG's, ha! I was there once myself and discovered that which led me to understand the way we act and carry on when I read what Mike Malone wrote about in how "we don't get the right receptors when we start out in understanding what is important and only gain them after time". I went years before I figured out that I could backdrill my contact screw and shove tungsten round stock into it, that tungsten will never wear out! Once set, I never have to adjust again until my points wear or I need to replace a spring, but why I couldn't figure out what would last a lifetime so late now in my life I attribute to not having the receptors for, only after fileing those contact screws for years did I figure out that I can have one for pennies that would never wear down and I wouldn't have to file. But then I didn't even have a copy machine for the first 25 years of my career.

Only when we get further down the road and have invested most of our adult life into what comes to be all that we know do we then start to dabble into what we never studied and discover things, and with every door you open there are two more and there is no end to study unless you give up altogether.

For instance, Ernie Sutton was tattooing long before he settled and anchored himself in CA, the early years were spent on the road and experiencing "life as a tattooist", then came the anchor time in CA and that opened the door of a partnership, that partnership then evolved to being known as a supply house, namely LATSCO. But what I can guarantee you is this, Ernie didn't care to chase anything down in his early years other than pussy and dollars in makin a livin and havin fun doing what he enjoyed. When the time came around his own approach in his work then became more serious, he came to study and look for improvement on what he did, he developed the receptors Rollo spoke of. Before the devolpmental receptors came to be, the generation before him had already figured it out, like Nick Melroy and his clipcord machine and before him Pop Liberty.

Allot went on in the those time frames, J.G.Russel elaborated on the tattoo machine and he was born in 1876! But it wasn't until his job as an electrician in a plant in Pittsburgh PA that he came to really get into casting frames and elaborating on things, what Russell came up with in one frame design was a solid machine that had such tight fitting tolerances that the contact binding post and the placement of the rear binding posts made for a solid machine that had very little flex to it, the kind that can be measured by simply squeezing the machine while it runs with your forefinger at the top of your upright and palm at the base of the frame where you can hear the flex of a machine in the sound, not much but still something and in the area that is neither mechanical or electrical of the elaborate door bell, ha!

My J.G.Russell machine is very solid and the need to ever change anything is not necessary in it's original condition, in other words, taken care of, the thing will run until you need to replace a spring or shim and a set of coils done correctly and a well made frame should last at least one lifetime if not several.

It's not guesswork to know that the studied contribute and to study those contributors we might just contribute something ourselves to this trade and none of us will ever know all the shit.

Petri,

Sorry to take so long to reply, these holidays have me busy.

Anyhow, the "guest spot" reference is only a reference to how much people traversed all over with tattooing even before the turn of the 20th Century. Tattooers are separated into generations and all the generations were travelers, The first gen used riverboat, wagon and railroad and by the second gen it was the highway and railroad as there came a "Gateway to the West".

The St Louis route was common in the riverboat/railroad regards but the Roue 66 Highway changed not only the way tattooers traversed but also our customers and that set the movement of tattooers into motion, Rout 66 changed the St Luis action allot. It's so very crazy the way people got around back then and their method of transportation, just imagine how it had to be for Percy Waters to cross back and forth from Detroit Michigan to Anniston Alabama in a Model A sedan, no interstate and the Model A was faster than a horse but think of having it climb every mountain top and pour water on the brake hubs at the bottom from riding the brakes with your foot and all the mud puddles and weather in between, hell, imagine Hildabrant crossing back and forth across to the Northern Union Soldiers and the Southern Confederates during the Civil War, talk about "guest spots"!

Ace Harlan from North Carolina and Ralph Bayon from NYC went back and forth to Puerto Rico to tattoo when things got slow and they wanted to visit Family, they were both Puerto Rican and both were buried there eventually. Bill Jones was known to go down and visit Ace to hammer on things in the shed for their own study and creation of tattoo items such as Ace's flip lid tattoo tube, good people and good friends, artists not only in Flash and skin but artistry and innovation in iron, brass, bronze, stainless, etc..

Painless Jack Tryon ended up down South in Texas in later years and entertained many tattooers.

Allot of people wonder where unmarked and unsigned flash comes from and there was so many who copied and did their own renditions of the same pages, mixed them up in cutout form and produced whole new pages that some suspect to be their original idea's when they were actually very old, like the pages of flash can be read like the forward of tattooing's Family Bible due to the Family Circle of tattooers through those years of travel. Everybody did exchange as the traveled to add to anothers collection of "hot sellers" of designs.

To collect and study the change and evolution of the "battle royal", that lone design met allot of evolution by many, shading effects, toe sizes, image styles on all three creatures, some designed to be tattooed quickly and others more elaborate to prompt a bigger buck. The only anger one could stir with other tattooers is to sell to the shop around the corner that wasn't considered friendly and competition was tough between some and such an action of placing the money over the friendship could wind up getting the seller on a blacklist with others.

There was also allot of cross cultural art fusion long before Cliff Raven, Sailor Jerry and others with the Asian influence. For that you can see it in the 1900 flash when "The Mystic Orient" was very much in vogue and found to be mesmerizing to a Nation that few had a telephone or electric light and could only read about under lamp light the culture in the far East, just look at the satin pajama's Wagner wore when he sat for the photo with oriental outfit on while making it looked like he was tattooing, this is not to mention that the man behind the camera taking the photo was Percy Waters before he left Charlie's company in NYC to start his supply operation in Detroit. The Geisha Girl pattern is also very old and of the same period and was considered a "exotic/erotic" design for that era.

Truly a fantastic era, also an era that tattooers were free to dispense cocaine as a numbing agent for an extra fee, ha! Maybe that was how people achieved a body suit so quickly for the side show attractions I dunno.

Ted and Pearl Hamilton are fine examples for the traveling and tattooing show in a "circuit" form of the circus.

Owen Jensen and Paul Rogers were fine examples of those who made stops at shops and they had a long list of locations, some followed from East Coast to West to catch up with the sailors as if they were always in the same port as the sailors, ha! Walter Cleveland comes to mind when speaking of shop owners who constantly relocated to other cities in other States to stay alive and busy. Bert Grimm was a shop owner who kept the doors open with employees while he went on to other locations to visit and profit with friends when the shop wasn't busy enough for all who worked there, Burt proved you could be anchored at a shop location and move at the same time.

Tex Eddie Peace is a fine example of the shop magnate of his era owning and operating 3 shops in the Portsmouth VA area with August "Cap" Coleman working one in almost an exile from the ban in Norfolk VA and Tex still keeping the doors open at the shop in Augusta GA where Stoney StClaire visited and worked along with Huck Spaulding and visits from Percy Waters and others.

When the time came for some who needed to anchor themselves in a permanent location for one reason or another you could find them doing sideline sales from selling fish to photographs and some with part time jobs as it became difficult on some in the way of health to travel so much.

But in summery you can see how things were awesome in those days before the internet and how things haven't really changed so much other than the technology we use in communication and form of travel we use today. Sailor Sid used to love to set off the metal detectors off at airports years ago just to show them his junk, ha! Now it's a bit trivial when it happens.

Thanks for your interest Petri but to list every single event of the history would be a thick book, so I hope I helped paint the picture you asked for.

The answer to the question of tattoos being popular 100 years ago? 1910, sure, but it was all part of a rhythm that started long before 1910 and the tattooing had escalated to "common folks"....again.

It's all read like a chart from the beginning of the recorded history here in North America and "secrets of a strange art" can be found to have plenty of holes and allot of sensationalism in content if you dig deep enough but it's good reading just the same.

At the time of 1910 things had brewed to mainstream from what it was at 1880, a social symbol of the home parlor invite, only for the privileged and in vogue with social elite. When it came to the circus and traveling shows and fairgrounds of the turn of the 20th Century and up to 1910 the common folks were finding it popular and the higher society then dissed it as it didn't belong to them anymore and such statements were made from those on high that "tattooing, if an art at all, is the most barbaric that man ventured into". Now remember that the tattooing done prior was of the fanfare to the Civil War in design and desire, all part of a charted and marked rhythm up to present day. Consume everything from social studies done on tattooing, the psychology papers of Doctors of their field which were way off base and an illustration of how far we have come now in social acceptance again, studies they had supposedly "proving" erotica, decadence, homosexual urges, all kinds of crazy to the "prison bound" papers of record.

To study everything page by page we all have to look not to the public relations articles and condensed tattoo history books but rather the articles of news as reported wether it dealt with a tattoo storefront altercation, a missing persons file, arrest records, commitment papers, even social security records have their indications into "what was going on and when". But back to the highs and lows of the "trend" as most people refer to it, The technology we have today does play a large part in the cycle of the up and down and the evolution of tattooing, we no longer have to hit every convention to keep up on most works and we use the net to buy books and converse, some could say the internet is burning us down and others will work off of the net and use it as the tool it was intended for, but wayyyyy back when it had it's peaks and then it's valleys and that does not change, there have always been high's and low's in the demand and trend. Only the evolution of tattooing becomes the victor and wins out, now this is including the bad with the good as some people tattooing today don't stop to understand where and when the "carney" reputation came from or out of and that would be found in the multiple era's of tattooing's high's and low's, such as the era of 1915 with tattooing being something found crossing the country in the carnival entertainment arena and into the smaller cities and the shops of the bigger cities and at a very fast growth, the entertainment people seek today can be found in todays "teck" dealing with tattooing on the living room's boob tube and the internet without leaving the house by horse and carriage as in circus days, people were entranced and entertained at a circus back then before all the teck of today no different than they are today watching reality programs. Thus the sub culture turns to pop culture and then trends out until the return no different than clothing fads, etc.. By 1915 we seen the popularity starting to wain with the general population until WW-I came and gave another dose to the tattoo vein and it rode out a little longer. There is such an overwhelming amount to consume that I can't begin to write enough to help everybody understand on this site and in this post but I can tell you that the nature of the beast doesn't change with the evolution of the art. So many believe that there were only those few that were wrote about historically in publications on the "study" of tattooing and very few ever wrote anything that was published directly from the hand of the person who spent 50+ years of their live in the business of slinging ink.

So lets use Charlie Wagner for an example of our nature and the trend. Charlie was the most publicized artist/tattooer of the turn of the 20th Century, but he started out in a second floor bowery room before his tenure with O'Reily, bad mouthed by his competition and himself fighting for his earnings in the trade. He then won out and onto the Chatham Square location, elevating himself along with the trend of that time through and after WW-I and becoming elevated to the stature that we term "rock star" today, he rode out the waves and then hit the lows with the Great Depression era starting in 1929 and still maintaining his place and earning a living on his work and equipment sales until 1940's WW-II when he again seen a resurgence of even more tattooers coming out of the woodwork to handle such "overflow" that he couldn't handle and seeing shops with multiple tattooers popping up all around him riding the gravy train, probably something he never expected in his trade and this is not to say that there were not many many tattooers across this Country at that time and growing in numbers, there were so many I can't type them all here or I will be up all night. Now roll past WW-II, it's 1952, the war trend for tattoos was over but people had money and industry was booming, the availability and shops by the numbers were all surrounding him and back to the bad mouthing and disrespect he seen at his start many years before, people seen the ability to make a high return on a low dollar investment and seized opportunity no different than we are seeing now with 50 dollar kits making everybody a "Tattoo Artist" from trailer park to uptown. Charley had come to be surrounded by people who came to demand all the business and not miss snagging every customer they could, shops were strategically located around the City and to set up directly across the street of another shop was considered breaking the code but even that code came to be broken after Charlies death in 1953, so big it grew that NYC didn't know how to control it and couldn't "control" it and it became easier to kill it with the ban than to try and regulate it within a decade, movement began then like it is now in the "guest spot" aspect, etc., but more to my point of the nature of the beast not changing, at the time of Charlie's death he had come to be surrounded by others who regarded him as an alcoholic working under a stairwell in the back corner of a barber shop after once being the rock star of the earlier era, this cannot be denied. But it remains the fact that Charlie Wagner "was" and what he was is a man who endured with his art as one of the few totally freehand tattoo artist's who created what he did and came to the end of his life with what was behind him, that would be his life invested in the study of what he did to have it become the only thing he knew, and that is a hard legacy to follow and a reputable one worthy of all of my respect. The beast is that there hasn't been much change in the percentile of us in our own nature as tattooists and artists, some keep it real, others contribute but aren't certain of where it will take them, and there are those who burn it down without a care to honor the trade, some start out as your best known associate and neighboring shop to turn into a ruthless back stabber over a buck.

People have been speaking about the "Old School" now for some years, there is nothing but the newest school at all times in the evolution of this trade and art, every revival of tattooing has brought more study to it in approach as art in design like light source and effect to better understanding of the health areas and the understanding of the medical aspect, pigments and more.

All those great artists who created the Pharaohs Horses, the Rock of Ages, the Battle Royal, the Duel in the Sun, fusing the Asian influence, fantasy art, and the list goes on and on in creativity to tomorrow morning when I wake up.

We now are seeing and feeling the effects of more tattoo shops than starbuck coffee houses and shops are working the same angles they did from back when, 1957 show's us the era where it had become the same per capita as it is today, one shop has "over 500 designs" in the advertisement so the one around the corner had to state "over 1000 designs" to choose from, they started wearing doctor's smocks and the other did the same but put up signs of ":sanitary conditions" just to get an edge over the other because the trade had overgrown itself to what we call bologna times.

Royboy Cooper said in the 1980's that "Tattoo's are in their golden years" meaning that it is back on the shelf again, soon the news magazines printed articles stating that "Tattoos are coming to be in vogue"( not stating "again"), we started seeing design trend after trend, unicorns,dolphins, I KNOW I couldn't have predicted how far "tribal" would evolve when we started by culture ripping the Isles to now having it part of our culture in three dimensional form with shaded background and color and the many ways we have now wacked tribal, etc., but that is the evolutionary side again.

It's almost of no use in understanding as much of what is important and that is that there will always be the desire of some to mark their bodies and what it will evolve to is beyond our comprehension. The nature of the beast however doesn't change that much, we hear the tales of how people handled competition back when with baseball bats and how we don't do that now, but that again is part of the cycle and we will see it again and it still happens from time to time but more in the form of windows getting shot out and such, jeebers! Just Google "tattoo artist arrested" and you can see some of what's burning us down with people from shops tattooing the under age minors, to the kitchen magicians in the news for some drug arrest with the article title being "tattoo artist arrested on drug charges" like his doing tattoos at his trailer had some connection to drug charges,arghh! It reminds of the days when the articles of notorious Richard Speck the mass murderer always seemed to end with "And he had 'Born to Raise Hell' tattooed on his arm" like it was a connection somehow, and it was connected by one psychologists paper back in 1981 and accepted by that degree holdin mutha f@#ker, and all the middle class Mommies read it and felt they had a better understanding of "what tattoos are", now they have seen enough reality programing off of cable satellite to motivate that same person into the shop for a cancer ribbon, wow! What long strange trip it's been. So it remains, there is not so much an old school as there is newer evolution and no matter what comes there will always be customers, so whatever it becomes, there will always be work and the only thing we will one day have behind us is to see some of those tattooing today become those that others will someday come to research and critique. I don't think Charlie Wagner could foresee a simple photograph of him standing outside of his big shop on Chatham Square sell at an auction house for thousands of dollars but some tattooing now will leave the same kind of legacy someday, just takes time to come back around.

I really am sorry if any of you found this to be the most boring waste of reading time, and for that I do apologize, I just felt compelled to comment as there has always been "popular" with some and always will be and there is a whole lot to dig up and read if you search and if you end up like myself with tattooing and the people you know through it being closer than your own blood relation then you will see the history more as a Family Tree.

Here is the BIO of a "qualified Tattoo Expert" who boasts the "Only Tattoo School" It's a bit off topic of horror stories but when I came across it I was very amused. If this is too off topic or nameing names to the point it needs deleted then by all means delete moderators, I just figured it would fall into what could easily turn horor story.

BIO

Dr. L. W. Pogue

Dr. L. W. Pogue is a licensed doctor of chiropractic and certified naturopathic physician. He received his Bachelor of Science in Clinical Nutrition from Life University. He was trained in operating room aseptic technique (sterilization) at Grace Hospital in Detroit, Michigan.

Dr. L. W. Pogue is a licensed doctor of chiropractic and certified naturopathic physician. He received his Bachelor of Science in Clinical Nutrition from Life University. He was trained in operating room aseptic technique (sterilization) at Grace Hospital in Detroit, Michigan.

Beginning 1968 to present he has owned and operated tattoo studios in Michigan, Georgia, and Louisiana. In addition, he has operated The Worlds’ Only Tattoo School from its infancy, late in 1968 to this present day. He has trained more tattoo artists than ANYONE in history and there is only a remote second place – Harvey Kennedy, who is also on his staff. The World’s Only Tattoo School is the first tattoo school in existence to be licensed as a trade school by the government.

Dr. Pogue is an expert in neuro-linguistic programming – a power-learning system. From 1967 to present he has trained thousands of karate experts, including some who have become world champions in less than two years. Dr. Pogue and co-instructor Harvey Kennedy have both won USKA World Karate Titles in their 50’s – a feat not equaled by many. Pogue uses neuro-linguistics to achieve high results in power-training artistic individuals to become competent tattoo artists in a very short, intensive program. Over 38 years of unparallel experience speaks for itself.

Dr. Pogue shares his time with his homes in Michigan, Louisiana, and Trinidad, West Indies and is a collector of classic autos.

Mr. Frog, that is too funny, had to be one of those people who claim their Great Great Grandmother was a Cherokee Princess, ha! I had a gal in the chair the other day that said "don't piss me off, I'm 1/32nd Cherokee Indian" like one ethnicity can actually have a bigger temper than another while looking at me with those blue eyes and blonde hair. We got under way and I asked her "Just where is this full blooded Cherokee in yer Family tree?" and she said that "On my Grandmothers deathbed, she confessed to my Mother that her Grandmother was a full blooded Cherokee Indian" like some dirty secret or what, but the simple math had eluded her and I replied "Then yer 6.5%", she was looked stunned and all, so I started using my digits on the hand explaining that she would be 6.5% and then I asked her if she were part Irish and if that could be the blame for the "hot temper" she has, she wasn't taking to that to well. She didn't tip either.

That lady has prompted me to start using the comeback to the Cherokee Princess line with "I'm 1/32nd Wicken", ha! I just want for it to happen just once where somebody tells me how her Great Great Grandmother was raped by an Indian on some wagon trail back when, it's never the "buck".

Wickens are always a trip too, gotta explain EVERYTHING, "Earth Based Religion" I'd prefer extra terrestrial outer space moon rock, I best buy a mood ring to keep on hand to pick up and look at and then look to the customer and say something like "Wow, your appear to be angry today" to counter the BS, ha! Gotta keep it entertaining.

Here is the link that Ed Young sent me today, didn't see the online obituary around here and I'm hoping I'm posting this in the proper spot on this site and sorry if it's not.

Pinky Bing Kwan Yun 1927 - 2010 - Obituary - Tributes.com

Yep, and it didn't work either. The electro magnetic dual coil was around long before the O'Reily patent and even Samuel didn't use it as the case of O'reily vs. Getchel proved. In the case where Getchel was defending himself from O'Reily, Getchel proved that the patent that he was accused of profiting on was a tool that was neither effective or used by the public to apply tattoos. Samuel was interested in cornering the market on tattooing and was an amazing self promoter who ultimatly lost his case in court over the patent and the patent upon examination was somwewhat void to it being similiar and in effect no diferant than Edison's Papirograph pen in it's patent form. Non the less it was still the historical first patent of such an item, but to give credit where credit is due would be to say that Edison was the mastermind of our elaborate doorbell.

I hope the post of this picture comes through, it shows the top left machine of Walter Cleveland's using the Condenser, the 2nd and 3rd from the left are the two frame styles he used and came to be known for. The two of his rubber band/coil spring A-Bar machine are chopped Bill Jones squareback frames and considered his first attempts in making them a working machine. Something to note is that these machines really work well! Amazing the way the rubber band machines work, the machine with the longer teeter totter on it is the shader and the shorter the liner. Also, when you connect and disconnect the condenser, it appears to have no less effect than a capacitor, the spark is arrested. I called Scott and spoke with him at Tattoo Charlies in Baltimore, Scott learned from Dennis Watkins and Watkins from Charley, point being, Dennis's machines have the oldest form of a capacitor I can find. After thinking about the question, I figured as to what the earliest could be so I looked to the earliest example of a capacitor on a machine and what I found was Dennis Watkins from Tattoo Charlies to be the earliest I could find. Scott is gonna get back to me after he ask's around about it. Also bear in mind that Dennis worked closely with Paul Rogers and there would be a likely connection, I just hate to assume and post anything without backing it up with hard proof. Enjoy the pic.

Thanks, worked with a J G Russell machine and Dennis Watkin's old Percy Waters today in commemoration and they performed very well.

Happy Birthday! Samuel O'Reily patent was approved 119 years ago today on Dec. 8th 1891.

The first capacitors were not capacitors at all, they were condensers, as in the "Points coil effect" of Edison applied to the internal combustion engine ignition of the points and coil adding the condenser to preserve the burning of the contact points in the ignition became necessary to prevent machines falling out of time with an enlarged point gap in need of burnishing of the contact points from the excessive snap of electricity. Working similar to the capacitor of today that fills and only releases X amount, the condenser simply arrests the spark. The true origin to the 6 volt condenser application to the later creation and application of the capacitor, as the capacitor in the form we use today post-dates in "electronic's" and not the dawn of the "combustible gasoline engine", can be found in Walter Cleveland's tinkering and among allot of his creations or experiments in the elaborate door bell concepts. The 6 volt condenser can still be applied and work, it's just BIG, you can do so by attaching the single wire spade connector to the contact screw binding post and you can still get the 6 volt and a 12 will work equally and pick them up in auto supply stores, I use early Harley 6 volt replacement condensers. The point made of the use of the condenser versus the capacitor are that the condenser works to arrest and save your points from burning quickly, in the day that the guys at the shops were running off of a bank of machines that ran all day and all night knocking out tattoos on sailors while in port for a few days strait, they needed to keep things from falling into repair and running smoothly as we all know, when things are not, it makes for more time consumption when time was essential. The Capacitor however works as just that, it limits the capacity, so two different electric components with two different applications. Lyle put in print once that Walter was the man accredited to inventing the "capacitor" in use of the tattoo machine but I don't believe Walter ever reached the days of the capacitor advent that we use today and it most likely came from necessity through someone who knew enough about transistor radios/electronics to make the switch or someone who burnt the devils lettuce and figured it and then the passage from then on became part of tattoo machine evolution. The "facts" are, the West Coast appeared to have capacitors on machines in use and photo form prior to anything else I have found. I know this doesn't answer the question of the "who and when" but it does lend to the advent of controlling the flow and operation of both mechanical and electrical evolution of the machine, Spaulding was offering them in the 1970's and I can't remember when I switched to using them, didn't use them until the early 80's.

Other things to note of Walter's experiments would be, the rubber band and coil spring controlled A-Bar machine, the side mounted nipple on the A-Bar which became antiquated by the use of constant changing of the needle bar for each customer as the needle bar was drawn tight to the nipple then to be considered "fixed" until the pins wore out, the use of mixing 8 wrap and 10 wrap coils, his work at developing a very light weight machine, square coil cores, the creation of what now has come to be known as "true spring" of cutting an angle into the A-Bar for the spring "pitch". As a footnote for evidence, I have examples of all of the above, from reworked early Waters frames and hacked Jonesy frames to what he came to use most commonly which were seconds supplied by J.G.Russell, they always appear "shop floor paint green" and have notches evident on the frame that is evident of a factory second as they are casting flaws and not always consistent. I would like to think that Walter was "the Father" of the capacitor but it is an important thing to keep the candle lit on facts when the record of history is of concern. Most important to note and to Walter's credit would be that he really invested time and care in understanding the machine long before there was so much that we see now and to mention that he had to have a love for what he did as he was born left handed and tattooed left handed for many years until he lost the fingers from a saw mill accident, Stoney mentioned he lost them in WW-I but we know now that the saw mill was the culprit, regardless, he continued to tattoo by understanding how to work with the right hand. This is not to mention all of the greats that he worked with and the circle he kept in a day and age that had no internet of cell phone. He certainly had a true love for his trade and the Cleveland Family certainly carpeted the halls we walk today and should never be forgotten.