Sailor Jerry and Ed Hardy werern't the only tattooists at the forefront of traditional tattooing.
On the other side of the globe in Germany (Hamburg to be exact), Christian Warlich was apparently one of the first people in Germany to tattoo with an electric machine.
Born in 1891 he tattooed out of a pub in Hamburg (probably not as accepted today).
Being in Germany at the time he was he tattooed Nazi soldiers in the war and English servicemen after 1945 when the city was under British occupation. Probably a pretty crazy time to be tattooing.
A lot of what he tattooed design wise matches up with what was being tattooed in the USA and probably other parts of the world even though we weren't as connected as we are today, I think it shows people are just people and gravitate towards similar things. Ships were common most probably because a lot of his clients were service men and had sailed to other countries or ports. Pinups be he tattooed primarily men and they wanted to get tattoos of their loved ones. He also did amazing butterflies, really different in style which I love.
You can see a lot of tattooer today still tattoo his flash or work inspired by the man. There's even an Instagram page for it
https://www.instagram.com/nachlass.warlich/
If you'd like to read more there's a good write up below.
https://www.tattoodo.com/a/2017/03/flash-from-the-past-the-king-of-tattoos-christian-warlich/
The more you know about tattoo history the more you can see it today on people, designs inspired by tattooers of the past, maybe reinvented a little but our inspiration for traditional tattooing comes from them.
Peace Out