The Zeis Studio

Milton Zeis opened The Zeis Studio around 1932 as a commercial design and image editing studio. Soon Milton’s love for tattooing started to play a role in the business with the advent of Milton’s mail order tattooing lessons. Over the years The Zeis Studio added numerous products related to tattooing, including machines, inks, flash, cords, needles, coils, stencils, how-to books to name a few. The business quickly became very successful, not only here in the states, but, even included international orders from countries like Japan, Germany, England, Canada, and Mexico, just to name a few. Often orders were addressed simply to “The Zeis Studio” with no address, but they always seemed to find their way and Milton dutifully filled each and every one. The Zeis Studio was probably best known for its mail order tattooing lessons and equipment.

After Milton’s death in 1972, the business was run by his daughter and son-in-law with all proceeds going to the care of Milton’s widow. With each order a letter was attached notifying the buyer of Milton’s death and that shop would close up when everyone had been notified and the orders ceased. That took approximately 10 years with international order trickling in for year after that.

The Zeis Studio today honors the legacy of Milton Zeis, and preserves his legend through replicating “old school” tattoo flash and other tattoo memorabilia. It is our mission to make these replications as authentic as possible and in many cases are replicated from Milton’s originals. We strive to provide the best customer service while maintaining the same level of customer service as Milton would have. In the future, we hope to expand our efforts and continue to preserve tattooing history.