Two small black crown tattoos in fine line style, one on the back of a hand and a smaller one on a second hand wearing a pearl bracelet.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Small crown tattoos on the backs of two hands

Fine line · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

Two hands are shown close up, each with a small crown tattoo in black ink. The larger crown sits on the back of one hand and has outlined arches, a band and dotted jewels, while the smaller crown on the other hand is simpler. The shading is minimal and the soft, warm-toned photograph shows a pearl bracelet, a mesh cuff and a ring.

Fine line Hand Crown Hand Bracelet Ring Pearl

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You are nineteen the summer the Oriel Ballroom starts stamping a small crown onto the back of every hand that comes through the door. Mrs Pollard says it's for re-entry, so nobody slips out to the pier with a bottle and sneaks back in. You think it looks like something off a biscuit tin, and you say so, and Freddie from the bandstand says that's exactly why she chose it.

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Keep dancing. Freddie asks you for the quickstep at ten past nine, and you say no, then yes, because the band is playing the one about the bridge at Walton and you have never once refused that tune. His hand is cold from the lemonade cooler. He holds yours the way the instructor showed you, fingers flat, and the ink on his knuckle smudges against your palm. Under the glitterball the whole room smells of Brylcreem, talc and spilt shandy, and you are happier than you have any right to be on a Tuesday.

At midnight the lights come up hard and Mrs Pollard walks the floor with her clipboard. She stops at your table and turns her own hand over on the cloth. Her crown is faded to the colour of weak tea. She tells you she had it done the year she won the Gold Cup with a man who later went to sea and never sent a postcard. She says it without any sadness at all, the way you'd mention the weather.

You pull your cardigan sleeve down over your wrist on the walk to the cloakroom. The stamp is already fading, a few grey lines and a smear. Freddie is waiting by the coat rack with two cups of tea, and when he asks whether you'll come back on Friday, you don't look at your hand before you say yes.