IN SEARCH OF CORDAY
By Dana Brunson
Back in the early ’70s, I was fresh in the tattoo world and didn’t really care about vintage items. I was tattooing underground in Indianapolis, Indiana (because the state had a ban on tattooing) and owned a custom motorcycle shop. I had seen the old photos of tattooed people and old Spaulding and Rogers flash (circa 1950-1960) during my apprenticeship in D.C. Paul’s shop. But it all seemed so dated. I was interested in contemporary, cool designs. Boy, was I a pinhead. During one of my tattoo sessions at a local motorcycle swap meet, I got a lucky break. One of the other tattoo artist at the swap meet was so drunk that those in charge wouldn’t let him tattoo, so he decided to get a tattoo instead. He approached me and asked if I was interested in trading some old flash for a dragon head (at the time, worth maybe $40 or $50). Business was slow , so I picked five old sheets of flash from a box full―why I didn’t buy the whole box haunts me still today. I picked the flash that appealed to me and did the tattoo.
The flash laid around for years, until my appreciation for the past grew. The flash that I had traded for had a large initial C with a funny E in the center. One sheet had “Designed By” above two blacked out rectangles. Then, one day, my curiosity got the best of me and Dana (me), the tattoo detective, went to work. I placed the blacked-out sheet on a light table and, eureka!, I could see “Big Ben Corday, Los Angeles, California.” Upon further investigation, the funny E initial appeared to be the letter B scratched and modified into an E. I guess even in the 1920s those that could draw did and those that couldn’t blacked out names and added their own. Gee, would a modern tattoo artist ever consider this kind of fraud? Hummm?
Now let’s fast forward about thirty years. I was visiting my friend Robert Benedetti in Los Angeles, when my wife Dot checked eBay for old tattoo flash and, low and behold, nine 1920s sheets of flash with the strange E. C. initials in the corner appeared for sale. Strangely enough they were also being sold from Indiana. Too weird. The purchase was completed and my Corday collection grew. I wish I knew the history of the Corday/Indiana flash and, now that the E.C./B.C. secret is out, someone out there possibly has similar flash.
Most tattooist are familiar with Corday, due to the much publicized photo of his wife. She is shown with a large dragon running down her side with Corday’s signature on her breast. Stoney St Clair made a reference to Corday and working on his wife in his book Stoney Knows How, although some experts believe the tattooing in the photo to be fake and just drawn on. 
The Corday flash is a favorite in my collection. The best piece of my Corday flash is a large sheet of women’s faces that I purchased in a collection of flash from my friend Tennessee Dave James. Not much information on Corday can be found except that he was a giant, literally. He worked with the circus for a while, hence the name Big Ben Corday. Anyone with information on Corday or interested in his designs , please contact me.
Until next time, see ya in the funny papers!
—Dana
