It was 1984 and people from all over Bucks County gathered at the small Bristol tattoo shop, ‘Bernie’s Tattoo’s’, for their first ink-ing. There was a motorcycle standing in open air, and the walls were plastered with sketches of previous tattoos. Just 3 years ago, this was just a garage but now owner, Bernard Moeller, had built a lively hood here. In just 15 years’ time it be would one of the most well-known tattoo shops in the world, and the owner would break the record books.

Today, over 30 years later, the owner of that shop stands as a living testament that gauges do close up, that tattoos don’t look horrible after aging, and that not everyone regrets body modifications later in life. Owner of Bernie’s Tattoo, Moeller, now holds the world record for the most individual tattoos at 14,002. This is almost double the record of the previous record holder’s count.

Bernard had never set out to obtain the record. “I never thought I’d get this many. I was tattooing myself a little bit, more and more, and I checked  what the Guinness book record was, and he had 7,000, and I already had a lot on me… somebody said I should to go for the Guinness book…so then I went for it,” he said.

Moeller was just 17 when he snuck away at a carnival to get his first tattoo. It was a rose that said ‘mom’ underneath. “My mom would say ‘you better not be getting any tattoos, Bernie’ and I’d say ‘I’m not’, but I was getting my whole back done. We would go down the beach, and I would walk the opposite way as her and go get more tattoos. She was walking while I was getting tattoos. All the time she was asking me if I had any, and I would say no, and everyone would laugh. That’s why I don’t ask kids if they have any,” Moeller said.

Throughout his life Moeller constantly had to deal with the stigma placed upon people with tattoos. “When I’d go in a dinner, my wife and I, and people would look at me and say ‘oh, we don’t have room for you in here’. They didn’t want me to come in just because I had tattoos; I had problems. Waitresses would give me coffee, and just slide it, so it would spill all over me… but what I tell people, if they don’t like them, my tattoos, don’t look at ‘em,”

“People ask me if I’d do it over again, and I say yep, I’d do it over. I enjoy it, I’m happy I got them. It took me a while for the neighbors to talk to me, but they got over it,” said Moeller. The only advice against body modification he did add was not to get tattoos on your hands. “I tell people if you get tattoos, don’t get your hands done, because it does hold you back from different things, different jobs,”

Along with the advice to not tattoo your hands, Moeller suggest kids stay in school. Never having learned to read, Moeller struggled to learn his trade. “My wife used to have to read the tattooing book to me,” he said.

When looking at a man designed from the neck down, one may wonder why he never tattooed his face.” If I did my face, and looked in the mirror, I wouldn’t know myself; I’d look in the mirror, and say ‘who’s this guy?”