Thomas Cave, Beanpicker,
and his Social Security Tattoo

I really love the atmosphere in historic black & white photos, especially photos where a bit of an old tattoo is visible.

Once you've picked through a handful of historic tattoo photo books (Henk Schiffmacher's "1000 Tattoos" is a good place to start) you realize there are a finite number of vintage photos of tattooed folks that seem to get reproduced across many publications: discovering a previously unseen one is quite rare, so I was pretty stoked to find this charming shot through my pal John who in turn found it at Shorpy.

Based on the fairly defined edges of the line work and the fact the numbers appear to be modeled after a typeface or some damn fine handwriting, this Social Security Number tattoo was likely a professional job done with a machine and not hand-poked.

I think it's a shame more modest working-man tattoo photos go unpublished. While I certainly understand the appeal of heavy coverage or topless women with a teensy tattoo on their thigh I'd love to see more working-class tattoos from back in the day. I suspect there are plenty of unreleased images of suave rakes like this guy, oozing style and class—especially for a migrant farm worker—with only one or two small but nonetheless cool tattoos. Bet you got a lot of bang for your badass buck with a couple forearm tattoos back in 1939: neck tattoos just weren't necessary to convince people you were a serious threat.

Head over to Shorpy if you want to check out the higher-resolution original version of the photo or read more about the lineage interested parties have managed to trace on account of the guy's tattooed Social Security Number. Pretty incredible where a little tattoo can lead you.