The focus of my Burma-Shave collection is the original Burma-Shave/Burma-Vita era, from 1925 to 1963, before it was sold to Phillip Morris in 1963. Within this era, I’m generally interested in products, advertising (especially the wooden signs, subway/bus signs, and printing plates), and anything else that has an organic connection to the Burma-Shave phenomena. For example: jingle contest entries and the letters that were sent to the winners, press and wire photos regarding notable Burma-Shave/Burma-Vita events, the little paper jingle books that were included in product boxes, and more. Let’s call these core collectibles.
What I’m not interested in are the peripheral collectibles, such as things like golf balls and hats and mirrors and t-shirts and pennies – trinkets that have the Burma-Shave logo on them. I did buy some of these things during the early days of my collection, but they no longer interest me. There are, however, things that may seem like peripheral collectibles that I would want in my collection. For example, hypothetically, if Burma-Vita employees had been given Burma-Shave shot glasses one Christmas, and those are the only Burma-Shave shot glasses that exist, to me those would be core collectibles. There’s also the legendary one-of-a-kind Burma-Shave clock that had been a feature at the Burma-Vita headquarters and ended up in the Steve Soelberg collection.
Enough chit chat. Let’s get to my wish list!
(The photos with the red background on this page are from a single eBay auction for a large Burma-Shave collection. Unfortunately, I don’t have a name to credit them to.)
Burma-Vita Liniment
Burma-Vita’s original product: a liniment made of ingredients (cassia, camphor, and cajeput) that were described as having come “from the Malay Peninsula and Burma.” It didn’t sell well and I’ve never seen any.
Burma-Stropper
I have the box, but not the Stropper itself. Also, what is the wooden thing below the Stropper? It’s too big to fit in the Stropper box.
Sample Jar and Box
I have a sample jar, but not this sample jar. My jar is like the one shown on the top of the box in this photo. I don’t have the one with the white paper label.
I also don’t have a box for the sample jar I do have.
Blade Box Case
This is a case of little boxes that hold ten blades each. I have blades, and I have the little 10-blade box, but I don’t have this case that held the 10-blade boxes. (An empty case would be fine. I don’t need twenty little boxes of blades.)
Blade Thing?
What is this thing? Is it a packet of blades? Its label says it holds 10 blades, but the little blue box above it also holds 10 blades, and it’s much smaller. Maybe it was a packet of blades that was sent to soldiers overseas? That’s just a wild guess.
One-Pound Paper-Label Jar and Half-Pound Box
I have the small jar and the large box, which is what you see in this photo. What I don’t have are the large paper-label jar that goes with the large box and the small box that goes with the small paper-label jar.