Ear piercing before "the Gun" was invented

[mattie]

i have had my ears done once with the gun and once with a needle. the set done with the needle healed much more quickly and were much less painful! dont know why!

[Dane]

Akshun and Susan (Barefoot), you still amaze me!
Akshun, it was really cool to your last post, not least because you’ve impressed me a lot of times with your ability to find all kinds of information about ear piercing in the past. The method described in this magazine seems much more complicated than any method I ever heard of in my life. It sounds really pain free to, but I guess most people would find it just a little bit too inconvenient to have their ears pierced in stages that took almost a week! But it’s interesting that somebody have been using such techniques. It almost sounds like a minor surgery. Thanks a lot for sharing this too. I hope you want to share more stuff you might come across on this forum in the future. It’s incredible what kinds of information that you can keep providing, when I thought I did everything I could to get to know about how they pierced ears before the “gun” was around.

Barefoot Susan, you’re amazing me all the time too! I’ve seen some of your posts to a lot of forums here and you have a lot of interesting stuff to tell and some interesting views. The people you know and seem to come across stun me. First your mother who did ear piercings in a jewelry store as a teen, and now this elderly lady with her triple pierced ears. I’m very fond of piercings and tattoos in general, and I was very surprised to hear about this septum-piercing trend in Wales in the 1920’s. I’m pretty sure than only a few people into piercings ever heard of that!

Thanks both of you for sharing this information. You’ve been answering a lot of my questions!

Take care,
Dane

[Melbourne]

As somewhat of an earring enthusiast, i remember one article in GB Good housekeeping that said that you could have your ears pierced at Selfridges as late as the 1990's with a needle . Did anyone experience this. Also the year 1953 was mentioned by one writer, the Queen had her ears pierced just prior to the coronation, and this led to a surge of popularity in the procedure.

[pierced devil dog]

In the late 50s or early 60s there was a brief fad for ear piercing in the states that was hot enough to make "Life magazine
'. they were using the ice cube,needel with thread .( which was pulled back and forth through the hole, why I don't know). then the jewelry was put in. All a tad painfull ,but they put up with it to be cool. Being one of those men who has the over powering need to be pierced , its not peer presure or the fad ,it goes much deeper, I have tryed most of these methods. The piercing shop needel is the best way to go.
Hope this helps
craig

[Akshun]

Craig,

Thanks for your comments. The needle and thread method seems to appear more consistently than anything else pre the modern "gun".
It was also the basis of a magic trick Jane Curtin performed on a Penn & Teller show a few years ago. Jane already had pierced ears, so close up views weren't toooo grose for the more sensitive viewer!

There are two photos of such a piercing hidden on the web.
Search for "gettyimages" and then for images "tlp936095" and "tlp936096 "

Melbourne
I have read several things about when the Queen had her ears pierced, but so far without anything definite.
One said she had them pierced when she began to wear expensive jewels that were part of the Crown Jewels.
A more recent find said that the Queen Mother gave her a pair of earrings for her 21st Birthday (1947) and to wear them she had her ear pierced.

Ian

[tay]

i asked my mom, when I was three in 1958, my mom and her best friend had just gotten their ears pierced. one day, her best friend and her daughter had come over to our house . they got talking about how they liked their earrings and got the idea of piercing their daughters' they just used a needle. we were the only girls in grade school with earrings

[Pierced Female]

Hi everyone.I had my ears pierced by the block method in 1976.
Did not see how it was done.Method worked fine.
Can anyone tell me how this method worked.
Always wondered as gun method sounds so loud when seeing someone
else pierced in shop.
Happy New Year

[Dane]

Hi! I never heard about the “block method” before. It might be possible that I heard about it, but under a different name. After all English isn’t my primary language, so some words are certainly missing in my vocabulary. However (Pierced Female) I really hope that somebody will be able to explain how that method worked. If I had been allowed to have my ears pierced the first time I got very fascinated by the subject, it would have been around 1977. Although I have a job that prevents me from having my ears pierced, I’ve often thought of having it done while on a long vacation. If I did that, it would of cause have to be done with a “piercing gun”. But I’d at least like to have an idea about how it would have been done in the mid to late 70’s.
“Pierced female” don’t you remember anything at all from when you had your ears pierced? Anyway, your input is very much appreciated and it gives me another word to search for on the web.
Happy New Year to everybody!

Dane

[Claudia S]

All, this is an interesting topic which I have wondered about since I had my ears double pierced a few years ago.

I will post some stories I have found but here are some useful references for books on the issue.

Ciao, Claudia

Holmes, Anita Pierced and Pretty: The Complete Guide to Ear Piercing, Pierced Earrings, and How to Create Your Own, William Morrow and Co., 1988. ISBN 0688038204
Mascetti, Daniela and Triossi, Amanda, Earrings: From Antiquity to the Present, Thames and Hudson, 1999. ISBN 0500281610
McNab, Nan, Body Bizarre Body Beautiful, Fireside, 2001. ISBN 0743213041
Mercury, Maureen and Haworth, Steve, Pagan Fleshworks: The Alchemy of Body Modification, Park Street Press, 2000. ISBN 0892818093
Steinbach, Ronald D., The Fashionable Ear: A History of Ear Piercing Trends for Men and Women, Vantage Press, 1995. ISBN 0533112370
Vale, V., Modern Primitives, V/Serach, 1989. ISBN 0965046931
van Cutsem, Anne, A World of Earrings: Africa, Asia, America, Skira, 2001. ISBN 8881189739[/img][/url]

[Jennifer Fairfull]

There is a famous case on ear piercing which I remember reading when i was studying law in Australia ... this is a Uk case which forms precedent on the "reasonable man" test. You can read the whole judgement in your local law library if it has English cases.


Philips v William Whiteley [1938] 1 All ER 566

The plaintiff, requiring her ears to be pierced so that she could wear ear-rings, approached the defendants, who arranged with C, whole was a jeweller, to do this for then at their premises. C, before he set out for the defendants' establishment, placed his instrument in a flame and washed his hands, and, upon arrival there, dipped both the instrument and his fingers into a glass of Lysol before he pierced the ear. On the following, the plaintiff entered a nursing-home for the purpose of undergoing a severe operation, and some 13 days later after she had experienced some pain in the neck, an abscess formed there, owing to the entry of infection into the hole that had been pierced in the car :-

HELD: (i) a jeweller is not bound to take the same precautions as a surgeon would take, and, upon the facts, C had taken all reasonable precautions. (ii) it was not proved that the infection entered the ear at the time when C pierced it.

[EDITORIAL NOTE. It will be noticed that it has long been customary for jewellers to pierce woman's ear. When a jeweller undertakes what is in effect a minor surgical operation, he is not expected to take all those precautions which would be taken by a surgeon. It is sufficient that he takes the usual precautions that have been thought by jewellers to be necessary when carrying out the operation.]

[Paul M]

I can remember a surgical appliance shop in Acton high Street (West London) that offered "Ear piercing by experts 9ct gold earings used" Of course you couldn't see into the shop. I think that is where my fascination of earrings and ear piecing began back in the late 60s / early seventies.
Girls would come into school having been pierced the night before and their friends were always interested. In one lesson I remember Linda saying she had to turn her sleepers.
My wife had her ears pierced in 1974 a a jewellers in Greenford and I asked her one day how it was done, she said by some needle device and then sleepers were put in. She described it as a burning sensation as she was being pierced. She said she turned them every day for 6 weeks then tried to put other earrings in but after half an hour had to give up and put thee sleepers back in for a while longer. Eventually I plucked up the courage to ask her if she still had her sleepers which although she didn't went and bought me a pair so I could put them in her ears. 25 years on she still puts them in for me to play with. Is there any other fellas out there who likes sleepers and is fascinated by ear piercing

[Paul M]

Me again, I had other recollections after I posted last night, there was a chemist shop in Chiswick (West London) that offered "Ear Piercing - while you wait" which I always thought bit strange! I saw the same sign in a jewellers in Jersey.
Back in the 1960's very few girls had pierced ears at primary school, it was not until secondary school that they had them done albeit a few. There was one particular jeweller in Acton who pierced most ears and I guess by the Simplicity method as they always wore sleepers. You would hear "XX has had her ears pierced". I rememer talking to one girl Ina, who was quite happy to talk about her piercing and proudly showing her sleepers to my friend and me. I just can't get used to calling them hinged hoops, they are sleepers and always will be.
I never saw the Simplicity method in action but I do remember seing a little girl being pierced around 1974 in another shop in Acton screaming her head off and I suppose that was the Simplicity method.
The first time I saw the gun and stud method in action was at an Ideal Home exhibition, that was fascinating and I watched for quite a while.
I am however totally against babies and small children being pierced, to see very small babies sporting studs is terrible, it is only for the parents, not the child.
Our daughter had hers pierced nearly aged 9, she had previously declined the chance to have them done, but one day saw a friend being done for the second time and decided it was right for her. My wife would have taken her earlier to have her ears pierced when she was about 3, if I had said do it, as I did ask her if she was wanting to take her to get them done, , but I said no and I know that was right. She would not have taken her without talking to me anyway. Strange after she had them done many of her friends had theirs pierced as well.
My wife was 16 when she had hers done, and she said her friends were all around her the next day, which in 1974 was still quite daring. She has declined the offer of a second hole but will wear those small spring loaded hoops (sleepers) if I ask her.
Anyone else want to share their piercing experiences with the Simplicity method and the subsequent looking after the ears afterwards.

[Roberta]

I was first aware of ear and nose piercing in 1952 when I was in Singapore. I was trained to pierce in 1963 and have done so for many years,
Cyril Wilkinson pierced the Queens ears in 1952, Princess Margaret watched and felt faint and did not have her ears pierced. In fact she and her daughters have not had it done.
Cyril, whom I met, used a steel needle that was hidden in its body. The needle was unscrewed from the handle reversed and screwed back into the handle. Hidden in his hand he took hold of the bottom of the lobe and with a quick movment passed the needle trough the ear. The point was removed and the ring inserted behind the ear and then pulled through.
The tip has a surgical three sided cutting edge. I acutally have one of these needles. Points could be replaced as they became blunt.

The Simplicity Sytstem had two versions. The first was for rings only the second could be used for rings or studs. The first system had the ring placed into thye hollow needle which was then inserted into the syrigne like device. The second used the sme hollow beedles but the earring was inserted post piercing. The first was not as accurate to use as the ring had to be able to move down the slide thus the needle could wobble.
Various guns have been designed, I worked on some designs, but they all had the problem of the user handling the studs. The latest modles preclude this. One method used was a snap device that depended on a plastic collar breaking under pressure. Unfortunately the release point varied and sometime a slanted hole was made the device did not last long.

I very much deplore the practice used by some stores of two piercers firing their guns at the same time. Results vary greatly.

On marking ears it should be remembered that the person will wear a variety of earrings and the holes should be higher than best for light studs as heavyer earrings need support. If possible the person should consider holes for the light and heavy earrings, ie one hole above the other.

[Paul M]

As somewhat of an earring enthusiast, i remember one article in GB Good housekeeping that said that you could have your ears pierced at Selfridges as late as the 1990's with a needle . Did anyone experience this. Also the year 1953 was mentioned by one writer, the Queen had her ears pierced just prior to the coronation, and this led to a surge of popularity in the procedure.

Yes, Selfridges in Oxford Street had an ear piercing department on the ground floor for many years. It was staffed by the most immaculate ladies dressed in those rather figure hugging white beauticians dresses with perfect hair and make up and of course pierced ears. There was a display cabinet with an assortment of earrings in, gold ball studs, pearl studs and sleepers. Customers had to sit and wait to be called in to be pierced. I can remember one lady coming out with her new sleepers in, still looking a bit nervous, but looking good for having been pierced.
I would hang around nearby to see if someone came out having just been pierced or casually look in the cabinet at the sleepers and other earrings and when asked if I wanted any help would just say I was looking.
On a holiday to Jersey many years ago there was a jewellers offering ear piercing with a pair of sleepers on a card for display purposes. I was tempted to go in and have an ear pierced just for the week and always regret it, I just can't imagine the thrill I would have had being pierced then turning the sleeper for the week. Never mind, does anyone want to share their Selfridges experience?
Years later the first time I bought some sleepers for my girlfriend - now my wife - I was so nervous I could hardly get the words "a pair of sleepers please" out.

[Carlotta]

This is just the ultimate read......

It does reference some of the information contained in these posts about ear piercing, but goes way further and is not just titilating but truly informative with regards to attitudes to ear and body pericing in the first part of the 20th century.

Enjoy.

http://biography.ethelgranger.com