Barber Pole No. 34,889 has seen better days.

After spending more than 40 years in front of Twin Cities barbershops, its red-white-and-blue-striped cylinder is sun-faded and in pieces inside its glass casing.

About a week ago, Rob Mason brought No. 34,889 back to the William Marvy Co. in St. Paul, where it was manufactured in 1963, to have it restored.

The pole’s first home was outside the Brooklyn Center barbershop owned and operated by Mason’s father until the mid-1970s.

“It brings back a lot of memories,” Mason said. “As a little kid, I remember seeing it — to the right of the door was this lit-up electric barber pole.”

Barber poles haven’t changed much in the intervening years, but Marvy has evolved into a very different company.

For nearly half a century, Marvy has been the only commercial manufacturer in the Americas of barber poles — an international symbol of the profession since the Middle Ages. But it’s been decades since Marvy’s signature product has supported the company financially.

“That’s our claim to fame — the barber pole business,” said Bob Marvy, the company’s president and the youngest son of its namesake. “But we’re fairly diversified. That’s what saved us. That’s what kept us going.”

William Marvy got his start in the barber supply industry as a boy in the 1920s, running errands for Empire Barber Supply after school. In 1936, he decided to go into business for himself and founded the William Marvy Co.

He peddled his barber supplies — razors, brushes, pomades, etc. — across southern and western Minnesota, spending five days a week on the road. After 10 years, he’d had enough. He saw a way out through the industry’s most ubiquitous symbol.

The barber pole dates back to the Middle Ages, when barbers performed a handful of medical services, such as dentistry and bloodletting, in addition to cutting hair. These surgeon-barbers hung bandages — some clean, some soaked with blood — on a pole outside their shops. The blue stripe was added later, either as a patriotic gesture or to represent blue veins.

This image came to symbolize the profession. Over hundreds of years, the symbol evolved into the modern motor-driven electric barber pole.

By the late 1940s, most were being manufactured with a cast iron caps on each end, making them heavy and prone to rust. William Marvy set out to improve on this design.

On New Year’s Day 1950, Bob Marvy and his brother Jim flipped the switch on their father’s first “Six Ways Better” barber pole. Built with lightweight aluminum and rustproof stainless steel, it took off.

And after the Paidar Co. in Chicago and the Koker Co. in St. Louis stopped producing barber poles in the late 1960s, Marvy became the last manufacturer in North and South America.

During its peak year, 1967, Marvy turned out 5,100 barber poles. But it was not to last.

The serial numbers etched into the nameplates of the poles tell the story of their decline. Between 1950 and 1967, the company turned out Nos. 1 through 50,000. But in the 46 years since, it hasn’t even passed the No. 85,000 mark.

“It took a dive fast,” Bob Marvy said.

When Rob Mason’s father, Don Mason, bought pole No. 34,889 in the mid-1960s, neighborhood barbershops were ubiquitous in towns across the U.S. Rob Mason remembers that men would come into his father’s shop for trims at least every couple of weeks.

That changed after 1967, and if you had asked William Marvy, he would have told you exactly what started the slide: The Beatles and their moptops.

“They came along, and long hair was the fashion,” William Marvy, who died in 1993, told the Pioneer Press in 1980. “What that meant was a lot of barbers got out of the business.”

This radical shift in grooming habits could have been fatal for his business, but William Marvy’s inventive streak didn’t stop with his barber pole. He’d also created his own line of disinfectants.

Mar-V-Cide germicide jars and the Steril-Ray ultraviolet oven disinfect combs, brushes and scissors at salons and barbershops. These disinfectant products now account for about half of the company’s revenue, while its barber poles and assorted barber supplies make up the rest. These are sold worldwide through a network of distributors.

Marvy also generates much of its barber and beauty supply revenue from consumer sales at its storefront.

But the company has never stopped manufacturing its famous barber poles, competing mainly with cheaper Chinese models.

Its singularity in the U.S. brought William Marvy and his company much attention. He remains the only non-barber ever inducted into the National Barber Hall of Fame. Before his death, Marvy appeared in the pages of the Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine and National Geographic. He was even interviewed by Charles Kuralt for the TV program “On the Road.”

Recent press coverage of the barber pole industry has largely centered on the fight over who can display one.

Licensed barbers have argued that they alone should be allowed to mount barber poles outside their shops, and some states have passed laws prohibiting non-barbers from doing so. Minnesota lawmakers passed such a law during the 2013 session.

“It’s an awkward position for me,” Bob Marvy said. “It would be better for business if they didn’t have that law, but my customers are predominantly barbers and they support it. … We stay pretty quiet about that.”

Minnesota’s barber pole law will take effect July 1. Bob Marvy doesn’t expect the law to have much of an effect on his company’s revenue — Marvy manufactures a “stylist” pole to accommodate their non-barber clients — which has been largely flat over the past decade. Although he does note that they’ve seen a slight bump in recent months.

Barbering has enjoyed something of a renaissance lately, he says, and with it, barber poles. Bob Marvy estimates his company will fill orders for about 800 before 2013 is over.

“Things keep changing. This year, we’re having a tremendous year with the barber poles, but it’s nothing like it once was,” he said. “It never will be.”

Nick Woltman can be reached at 651-228-5189. Follow him on Twitter at @nickwoltman.