# Burma Shave **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 27, 2002, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burma-shave/139156 "2002-11-27T17:54:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Knighted\_Vorpal\_Sword](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ac91a4/32.png) [@Knighted\_Vorpal\_Sword](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knighted_Vorpal_Sword)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2002, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burma-shave/139156/1 "2002-11-27T17:54:16Z")
Are there any original Burma Shave signs left out on the highways? ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2002, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burma-shave/139156/2 "2002-11-27T18:03:46Z")
Once the highways All did wave With those signs Both bold and brave. But Lady Bird said they must go— So today you will see no BURMA SHAVE ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2002, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burma-shave/139156/3 "2002-11-27T18:06:42Z")
That notwithstanding, I’m pretty sure I saw a set on a highway in the South somewhere several years ago. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2002, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burma-shave/139156/4 "2002-11-28T19:54:34Z")
It’s quite possible there is, though not intentionally. By 1963, the manufacturer of Burma-Shave was sold to Philip Morris’s American Safety Razor division. Because of television and such, the signs were no longer needed. There is a set in the Smithsonian (“Within this vale/of toil/and sin/your head grows bald/but not your chin-use/Burma Shave”), and other sets on display elsewhere. But are there any still on the roads? Who knows? As Frank Rowsome, Jr. wrote in his wonderful book on the Burma-Shave signs, _The Verse by the Side of the Road_, > [@](#): > > Perhaps it is a quirk of memory or some persistence of vision, but many people will assure…a set was noticed just a few weeks ago…So far as is known, this is an illusion…(Yet with some thirty-five thousand individual signs once planted around the nation, it is certainly not impossible for a few to have evaded the dismantling crews[)]…The question of the physical existence of…remaining signs is scarcely worth a search program. (Rowsome 67) It should be noted that when American Safety Razor brought back the Burma-Shave brand around eight years ago, they used the famous signs in their advertising. [sub]Work Cited: Rowsome, Frank Jr. _The Verse by the Side of the Road: The Story of the Burma-Shave Signs and Jingles_. New York: Penguin/Plume, 1965. [/quote] ---
**Author:** ![I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_can_t_believe_that_s_butter)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2002, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burma-shave/139156/5 "2002-11-28T21:24:01Z")
I saw a Burma Shave-style sign on MacArthur Blvd. between 164th and 178th streets (for all you OKC-area dopers) about 8-10 years ago…though I think it might have been a bible verse. I’ll try to find a link on this, but I remember reading in _Reminisce_ magazine at the same time that they planned (or were going) to put a set of authentic Burma Shave signs in all 50 states. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2002, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burma-shave/139156/6 "2002-11-29T18:16:50Z")
Note that a. Burma Shave signs are collectibles worth $ and b. that the signs are just sitting out there next to the road, that we can conclude c. no more signs by the road.