Sailor Jerry

Norman Keith Collins was born on January 14th 1911 and died on June 12th 1973 and was a prominent and cultural icon in Tattooing.

He joined up to the United States Navy when he was 19 years old and on his travels managed to pick up a passion for Asian art which was a big influence on him.
He learnt how to Tattoo by traveling on trains across America and learning how to tattoo from people on there and also practising on people.


His " Signature" work/tattoos are of the following.

• Bottles of booze
• Snakes
• Wild cats
• The infamous “Aloha” monkey
• Eagles, falcons and other birds of prey
• Sparrows
• Motor heads and pistons
• Nautical stars
• Classically styled scroll banners
• Knives, guns and other weapons
• Dice

Generally anything that can be described as " Mans demise"

I myself have a Nautical Star on my foot, Which to me means that you know where you are going in life and you know what path you are on.

Jerry at work....looking very cool with a pipe while doing his art.






He was also one of the first tattoo artists who used hospital style sterilisation and also single use needles to stop the spread of blood diseases through tattooing.
He also designed new needle set ups and machine designs to penetrate the skin without causing as much trauma.

Jerry also went out and found new pigments to be used in tattoos since at the time there was only a limited use of colours ( Black,Red etc)
To test that these colours would work he would tattoo himself on the lower leg and if they stayed/did not fade he would make a note and come back to it.


Norman Keith Collins has had such a influence on the tattoo world he has also had an influence among other stuff, For instance he has a rum named after him where a recipe was found after his death, yet again another nod to him sailing all his life.
He was also the first person to use purple in tattoos.


As you can see his tattoos have an " old school" feel to them.



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His work also had a dark feel to it at times....



here are the "nautical star", which is what I have on my foot.



here is a bit of infomation on the nautical star and its significance.

"The nautical star is a 5-pointed star, the points are split in half and filled with an alternating color (usually black-red or black-white), creating a 3d illusion.

Sailors used stars and the North Star (aka Polaris) for navigation, so it's not hard to see why so many of them have star tattoos. They function as a guide to get them back home safely. Soldiers have them for the same reason. Swallow tattoos also have a similar kind ofnautical history."