Not Our H & H
Over the years we’ve accumulated a small rogues’ gallery of items that look like ours but aren’t — pieces collectors and sellers frequently confuse with the Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee Company of San Antonio. They share a name, a monogram, or a product category, but none of them were made by this company.
The lookalikes fall into a few groups:
- Other Hoffmann firms in food and beverage — Hoffmann’s Old Time Blended Coffee and John Hoffmann & Sons were separate roasters; Hoffman Bros & Co., Ltd. of Columbus, Ohio imported tea sold in labeled tins. None of them are the Texas Hoffmanns who founded H and H.
- Other “H and H” marks — The Harnit & Hewitt Co. of Toledo, Ohio sold a Mocha Blend coffee tin under its own H & H initials, and the H and H Cleaner Co. of Des Moines, Iowa used the same two letters on an unrelated household product. An aluminum-and-Bakelite coffee pot stamped “H & H” on the base turns up in online listings as H and H Coffee but is a generic housewares mark.
- Unrelated bottles and beverages — The Pinch brand Kork-N-Seal bottle from Vinton, Virginia and the Javo bottled coffee in aqua glass get miscataloged alongside Three Rivers Glass and H and H bottles because of their shape and era. The Hoffman Beverage Co. soda labels from Newark, New Jersey (1933) share the Hoffmann surname — dropping one n — but were a soft-drink bottler, not a coffee roaster.
If you’re trying to identify a piece, compare it against our collection and reference galleries, and see the history page for background on the real Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee Company.
