Nantucket's Most Stolen Street Signs — And How to Own One the Right Way

If you've spent any time on Nantucket, you already know the street signs are different here. No standard-issue green aluminum. No highway department fonts. What you find instead, on nearly every corner of this island, are hand-crafted wooden signs painted in soft grey and beige — quiet, understated, and unmistakably Nantucket. They are as much a part of the island's visual identity as the grey-shingled cottages and cobblestone streets.

They're also, apparently, irresistible to thieves.

The Island's Most Wanted Street Signs

Year after year, the same signs keep disappearing. Nantucket Avenue tops the list — it's pulled from its post so frequently that locals have simply come to expect it. Gloucester Street and Dartmouth Lane out in Tom Nevers get hit regularly, often in batches. Over in 'Sconset, King Street, Coffin Road, McKinley Avenue, and Morey Lane are perennial targets. The thefts pick up toward the end of summer, when departing visitors apparently decide they'd like to take a little piece of the island home with them.

A few signs became such chronic victims that the town eventually gave up trying to replace them with wood altogether. Whalers Lane, High Street, and Shady Lane were swapped out for etched stone and granite markers — durable enough to make casual theft impractical. It's an expensive solution to what amounts to a souvenir problem.

Some thieves don't even bother with subtlety anymore. Reports have surfaced of signs being taken by cutting through the post entirely with power tools — a level of dedication that says everything about how much people want these signs and nothing good about their judgment.

The legal downside is real. Taking a street sign in Massachusetts can result in a wanton destruction of property charge, which carries potential jail time and fines calculated at three times the replacement value. That's a steep price for a wall decoration.

Why Nantucket's Street Signs Are So Special

Nantucket holds a rare designation as a National Historic Landmark — one of only a handful of entire communities in the country to earn that distinction. That status gives the island the authority to set its own standards for things like street signage, allowing it to maintain a look rooted in its architectural and cultural heritage rather than conforming to state highway specs.

The result is a streetscape that feels genuinely timeless. Walking down a Nantucket street, the signs feel like they belong there — because they were designed to. They're made from real wood, painted by hand in colors pulled from the island's own palette, and lettered with a simplicity that suits the place perfectly. They don't shout. They fit.

That authenticity is exactly what makes them such a target. People want to own a piece of something real, something with a sense of place that's increasingly rare. The problem is that ripping one off a post isn't ownership — it's theft, and it leaves the rest of the island's residents and visitors with a missing navigational marker and a repair bill.

The Right Way to Own a Nantucket Street Sign

Here's the good news: you don't have to steal one.

At Quarterboards.com, we handcraft authentic Nantucket-style wooden street signs built to the same specifications and aesthetic as the signs that define the island's roads. Same wood construction. Same painted finish in the classic grey and beige tones. Same clean, traditional lettering that makes a Nantucket street sign look like nothing else.

We make custom signs for private roads, named driveways, and estate entrances across the island — because not every road on Nantucket is a public one, and private property deserves signage with the same character. Developers laying out new roads, property managers marking seasonal rentals, and homeowners who simply want their address presented properly have all turned to us for signs built in this tradition.

We also produce Nantucket street sign replicas for display — for the beach house wall, the summer home mudroom, the office that needs a little island in it. A custom sign with your street name, your family name, or a favorite Nantucket address makes a meaningful, lasting gift that nobody had to break the law to acquire.

Built on the Island, Shipped Everywhere

Nantucket's sign-making tradition is rooted in real craft — the kind that requires attention to material, finish, and proportion. At Quarterboards.com, every sign we produce respects that tradition. We work with the wood, the colors, and the letterforms that belong to this place, because we believe a sign should look like it was made here. Because it was.

We ship custom Nantucket wooden street signs anywhere in the country, so whether you live on the island year-round or only get out here for a few weeks each summer, you can bring a piece of it home with you — properly, permanently, and without any risk of a misdemeanor charge.