Traditional nautical tattoos

[Neil Merryweather]

And it's been suggested that pirates may have been reluctant to give themselves permanent distinguishing marks, to avoid being too easily identifiable.

I can't help feeling you are over thinking this.....

[KarlW]

I can't help feeling you are over thinking this.....

Agreed.

Rule of cool, if you think a tattoo would look could and can pull it off without the urge to slit your own throat go for it.

[Tim Marlow]

I can't help feeling you are over thinking this.....

You wait until we get on to the “Is he a Buccaneer, Privateer, or Pirate discussion” Neil :smiling5:

[PaulinKendal]

... or freebooter...

[PaulinKendal]

Agreed.

Rule of cool, if you think a tattoo would look could and can pull it off without the urge to slit your own throat go for it.

I've decided the best option (Hold Fast) is just not doable. So I might go for a big red heart with 'Mum' on a scroll across it...

[The Smythe Meister]

I've decided the best option (Hold Fast) is just not doable. So I might go for a big red heart with 'Mum' on a scroll across it...

...... Or.....just a ring of dashes around the base of the neck with "Cut Here" written in the front middle of em

[Tim Marlow]

...... Or.....just a ring of dashes around the base of the neck with "Cut Here" written in the front middle of em

Love it….I saw someone with exactly that tattoo at a stranglers concert in about 1980…..a line of dashes, with cut here and the scissors symbol, just like a cut out coupon in a newspaper of the day. Looked really cool……but I wonder how cool it looks now they are over sixty :tongue-out3:

[The Smythe Meister]

..... He may not have made it to his sixties if someone took it literally!!....and it's just the sort of thing I'd expect to see at a Stranglers concert from that era!!

[Tim Marlow]

..... He may not have made it to his sixties if someone took it literally!!....and it's just the sort of thing I'd expect to see at a Stranglers concert from that era!! :smiling3:

Saw them a few times. Really good live act. Mind you, they were pretty low key compared to a Souixie and the Banshees concert of the same era……now that was absolute mayhem……only time I saw slam dancing in a major venue……

[rtfoe]

Tattoos could have been seen much earlier as the Portuguese and Dutch sailed to the east much earlier than the English.

Cheers,
Richard aka Wabble

[rtfoe]

Alfonso De Albuquerque landed in Melaka or Malacca in 1511 and as far as the Philippines.

Cheers,
Richard aka Wabble

[Andy the Sheep]

Tattoos are really older than that.
The tattoos here below are from a man known as Oetzi (see wikipedia for further details) who lived some 3100 years B.C. He (or his mummy to be more precise) was found in 1991 under the ice on the high mountains on the border between Austria and Italy.

At the time of his death he was wearing sandals to hike on a glacier so he's suspected to be a German tourist; to reinforce this hypothesis, he was carrying his work tools with him, so the chances he was an Italian are really scant. :tongue-out3:

Andrea

[PaulTRose]

At the time of his death he was wearing sandals to hike on a glacier so he's suspected to be a German tourist;

only if he was wearing socks with the sandals :smiling5:

[The Smythe Meister]

Saw them a few times. Really good live act. Mind you, they were pretty low key compared to a Souixie and the Banshees concert of the same era……now that was absolute mayhem……only time I saw slam dancing in a major venue……

Never saw Souixie and the Banshees.... DID see The Stranglers a couple of times in the 80's,(I'm  PURELY a Hugh Cornwell line-up bloke though,after him they weren't "The Stranglers" anymore,just MHO obviously )

only if he was wearing socks with the sandals :smiling5:

..... if there was no towel discovered about 50 yards away then he wasn't no German!!

[Airborne01]

... or freebooter...

or even 'Corsair' ...