There's a common misconception that old timey tattoos either looked like crap or were all images and symbols associated with sailors, but just like the myth that women never got tattoos, this too has proven to be untrue.
And aside from the speed of application and the type of ink used there is very little difference in quality between the tattoos people get today and the ones they got back in the 19th century.
There were, however, far fewer tattoo artists out there applying their art to skin, but as you can see in these vintage photos the tattoos being applied by Sutherland Macdonald were top notch.
Sutherland Macdonald was one of Britain's first tattoo artists, having been exposed to the art of tattoos while serving in the British Army in the 1880s, and he was also an innovator who patented an electric tattooing machine in 1894.
He also supposedly came up with the idea to add blues and greens to the tattooist's palette.