Leather Archives & Museum: 25 Years (1991-2016) [digital]

ear. After the War, Sid traveled for a few
years before settling in Miami, Florida. Sid
had a career as an electrical engineer until c.
1974 when he retired.
In conducting research for this collection at
the LA&M, it was not only uncovered that
Sailor Sid was born in Chicago, but the US
census revealed that he lived with his mother
and father just blocks away from the current
location of the Leather Archives & Museum in
Edgewater! The letters from his collection, in
addition to his writings for The Theban,
newsletter of Thebans MC, also discuss his
visits back to Chicago. In the 1970s he most
often came back to see his friend Cliff Raven
before Cliff relocated to the West Coast in
1976; later Sid came to celebrate
anniversaries at The Gold Coast.
Sailor Sid is most well known for being one of
the early piercing, body modification, and
tattoo innovators alongside Doug Malloy,
Fakir Musafar, Cliff Raven, Jim Ward, and
Bud “Viking” Navarro.
He ran Silver Anchor Tattoo and Piercing
Studio from his house, first in Miami and then
Ft. Lauderdale, where he tattooed and
pierced mainly gay men from his home. Many
of the photographs from the Sailor Sid Diller
Piercing Collection proudly reveal nuances
about his work/living space--we see dozens
of photographs in a row of genital piercings,
and then suddenly we are looking at a
photograph of Sid’s dachshunds, his
Volkswagen Beetle in the driveway, the red
white and blue anchor-themed bedspread of
his bedroom.
Sid was also an Honorary Member of
Thebans MC (Miami) and was a Recording
Secretary and on the Newsletter Committee
in May/June 1976, and continued to
contribute to the Thebans newsletter until late
1979/1980, when he relocated to Ft.
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