Jeff Cohen got handed a machine at thirteen and was left to work it out, so that is how he ran his shop. What Dave and Lauren carry from him, and what they learned somewhere else. Read more
Flash was $25 a sheet and hard to find. Inside The Custom Tattoo Company’s early years in Havelock, before appointments and the Internet. Read more
The Custom Tattoo Company did not close when Jeff Cohen died in October 2018. The handoff to Lauren and Dave Tedder had been underway for almost a year, and Jeff was there for most of it. Read more
One family shop, defined specialties. Dave Tedder in Japanese Irezumi and American Traditional, Lauren Tedder in Traditional Americana, Dotwork, and Fineline. Read more
The Custom Tattoo Company is a family-run tattoo shop in Havelock, North Carolina, opened by Jeff Cohen in 1983 and carried forward today by Dave and Lauren Tedder. Read more
The Custom Tattoo Company has been operating in Havelock, North Carolina since 1983, and the placement was deliberate. Jeff Cohen’s road to Havelock ran through the Bronx, the Navy, the carnivals, the Long Beach Pike, Florida State Penitentiary, and a stop in Jacksonville with Zeke Owen. The founding story, told from family-archive recordings in Jeff’s own voice and the voices of the old friends who came east to work alongside him. Read more