SAD FORMER PET OWNERS CAN'T RUIN HISTORY

Back in the day Copenhagen was the tattoo capital of Scandinavia. In the wee-early 19th century newly-laid-drunk-out-of-their-minds sailors would let usually just as drunk Danish tattooists add an eagle or an anchor to whatever ink-entourage they had begun assembling through ports in New York, Hamburg, the far east, and so on. Though Nyhavn 17, the world's longest-running tattoo parlor, is still around, today the world of needled ink appears rather blah when put up against its former glory. Watching those terrible

Ink

shows it seems like 9 out of 10 customers come in asking for a fucking picture of their dead pet? Hail Mary, you miserable, boring doinks--no wonder your "almost human" canary punched its ticket. To sum it up, tattoos are just another item on the everything-list entitled "Stuff That Was Way Cooler in the Old Days." Recently Jon Nordstrøm sent us his beautiful book,

Danish Tattooing,

which proves this sad truth. The book covers more than a century, but the ones we're showing here are from the 60s-- before silly bikers, former pet-owners, and advertising executives ballsed it all up. Enjoy.

Ink-Hans is Denmark's first professional tattoo-artist. He starts out in Nyhavn 17 around the turn of the century and in 1902 he has a local blacksmith make a machine for him based solely on a description from a foreign customer.

Pussy-Holger liked himself some trim. Unfortunately he liked them a bit too young and his tattooing career was put on hold by a prison term. Allegedly was released early because his balls were cut off by other inmates.

Tattoo-Jack operated under financial supervision of his wife but still managed to sneak some money past her, which he used to pay off the prostitutes he got down with in the backroom.

Behold, the coolest monarch ever, Danish King Frederik the 9th sporting his ink as featured in

Life

magazine in 1951.

Ole the tattooist. His self-manufactured machines are among today's most expensive tattoo-collector's items. He won the unofficial tattoo world championship in '82 and died six years later.

Tattoo-John aka John Bimbo-Banger got a lot of attention when he started doing tit-tats on 16-year-old girls. He drank two bottle of whiskeys daily and was always drunk, resulting in mishaps like double-beaked eagle-tattoos and eventually his death in '82.

Tattoo-Peter – here seen inking up a peter – was another notorious drunk who spent the early part of his career running his joint as a brothel/tattoo parlor-combo. He died in '72, sitting in his tattoo-chair, but no one noticed till two days later.

Tattoo-Jim sitting in his Århus shop, regarded as Denmark's most beautiful tattoo parlor at the time. He claimed to be able to remove tattoos and traveled around doing just that, always skipping town before customers realized it's utterly bogus.