Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (Aus.) a member of a working-class youth cult, usu. part of a gang, based on UK mods (later skinheads) which emerged in the suburbs of Melbourne in 1960s and flourished until late 1970s.

1955		Argus (Melbourne) 1 Dec 3/4: They are backed up by conversations we had with teenagers - various crew cut ‘cats’ and ‘sharpies’ who speak a weird ‘lingo’ taken from American films.
1965		W. Dick Bunch of Ratbags 202: These other cats called themselves sharpies.
1966		Aus. Women’s Wkly 27 July 64/2: We are not mods, surfies, sharpies, rockers or squares. We are ourselves.
1996		S. Maloney Brush-Off (1998) 151: They were sharpies, an amorphous tribe of terrifying reputation, precursors to the skinheads [...] they were less a gang than an attitude of casual violence looking for something to happen.
2004		(con. 1960s-70s) T. Taylor Top Fellas 11/1: Sharpies are ignored or written off as naught but a bunch of louts.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1981		W. Boyd ‘My Girl in Skin-Tight Jeans’ in On the Yankee Station (1982) 92: They were wearing worn out sharpie clothes.
1991		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper From The Inside 39: He was no angel during the sharpie street battles of those days.
2004		(con. 1960s-70s) T. Taylor Top Fellas 10/2: We were hooked, and took to grilling anyone [...] who was old enough to hip us to what this sharpie stuff was all about.
2005		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper 4 81: A real sharpie chick [...] the sluttish look, dirty girl face, short skirt and big tits.