There is evidence that tribal people, most notably the Dayak of Borneo, were the first people ever to use barbell body jewelry. In the US, barbell style jewelry was popularized by Jim Ward, founder of Gauntlet, the first body piercing studio in the United States, in the 1970s. He was introduced to barbell style jewelry by Tattoo Samy, a tattooist and piercer from Frankfurt, Germany. So there you have it. The history of barbell jewelry in a nutshell.
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