Nyhavn Tattoos

The below photos, the first of which is one of my favorites, are from Nyhavn, the world's oldest operating tattoo parlour. (The shop is now called Tattoo Ole, but here's a link is to its website, if you don't believe me and are able to read Danish.)

The top photo was taken in 1942, though the parlour itself opened in 1902. It all began when a seventeen-year-old who came to be known as "Ink Hans" (translated to English, of course) asked the owners of a pub if he could tattoo people in the basement. The proprietors agreed, the early twentieth-century being a time before the considerations of licensure and legal liability, and Ink Hans got to work.

Around the time he opened the shop, one of his customers told him about this machine that an artist had used to tattoo him overseas. He was intrigued, and asked the customer to describe the machine. Ink Hans then took the description to a blacksmith, who made him what was probably a really temperamental and one-of-a-kind tattoo gun. Using this gun, he was able to make a lot of money off of visiting sailors: many of the men who docked and spent the night with prostitutes wanted these women to get tattoos of their names. I guess Hans found that as hilariously egotistical as I did, because in his tattoo gun, there was a secret contraption that he could use to retract the needle and give temporary tattoos instead. With this, he was able to give prostitutes tattoos that would wash off the next day. Therefore, the possessive sailors could undock with the belief that their names were forever on these women, the women remained happily unblemished, and Ink Hans got his money. Everybody won. For a while, everything was a party, until Ink Hans seemingly disappeared from the annals of history and was never heard from again.

The shop changed hands a few times until the 1940's, when it came under the direction of Tattoo Jack, the man seen in the photos. He was this super-famous tattoo artist who eventually went to jail on drug charges, but for a while he was especially popular among the Swedes for his tattoos of women.

It seems as though he had impeccable talent for marking people up while smoking, while miraculously not burning anyone.

Nyhavn, 1942, Tattoo Jack and some sailors

Finally, thanks to the wonderful folks at Reddit, I found this photo of Tattoo Jack smoking and tattooing the other sailor as well.

Nyhavn, date unknown

The sailor stereotypes I've carried all my life might've been true after all...