Alamy Stock Photo — H and H Blend Tins and a Border Brand “Cup & Saucer Premium” Pail on a Shelf Display

A color Alamy stock photograph — the familiar “alamy” watermark is visible across the frame — showing an antique-shelf grouping arranged against rough weathered wood-plank siding. The image documents three Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee Co. items and one contemporary unrelated San Antonio product sitting together on a dusty shelf, and it’s useful to the project for two separate reasons at once.

The H and H items

Two three-pound rectangular H and H Blend Coffee tins (at left, stacked).

Both are standard examples of the rectangular parcel-post three-pound H and H Blend Coffee Medium Ground tin, with the bold red-white-and-blue label design familiar from other examples in the gallery. The top tin is in noticeably cleaner condition — most of the red ground and blue accents are intact — while the bottom one is much more weathered, with extensive paint-flake loss down the lower half of the label, heavy rust, and obvious denting. Both plainly read:

H AND H BLEND COFFEE / MEDIUM GROUND / ROASTED AND PACKED BY / HOFFMANN-HAYMAN COFFEE CO. / SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

This is the same rectangular three-pound variant held in the museum collection as the paper-label three-pound H and H Blend Coffee tin, shown here as two additional reference examples in different states of wear — useful for condition comparison.

A Hoffmann-Hayman “Border Brand” Premium Coffee pail (at right).

This is the more consequential of the H&H items in the frame. A tall cylindrical pail with a rusted press-fit lid, in a striking red, white, and blue vertical-striped body pattern. The front carries the Border Brand shield-and-cartouche motif: a scroll reading “BORDER” over another scroll reading “BRAND”, a central vignette of a cup and saucer, banners reading “SAUCER” and “PREMIUM” flanking it, and “C[OFF]EE” across the bottom with “STEEL CUT” running along the very bottom edge. The key element, though, is the ornate oval side cartouche (with a decorative “H” monogram above it) that plainly advertises:

THIS BUCKET CONTAINS / CUP & SAUCER PREMIUM / Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee Co. / SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

That side cartouche matters because the Border Coffee brand page already calls out that Border was sold “in three-and-a-half or four-pound pails, in versions with or without premiums” and explicitly lists under Wanted:

Three-and-a-half or four-pound pail examples called out on the Brands page, especially premium and non-premium variants.

This Alamy photograph doesn’t put a Border premium pail in our hands, but it does document one on the record, with the premium-offer side cartouche plainly legible. It’s the first reference image on the project to show the “cup & saucer premium” side of a Border pail, the existing gallery entry having only captured the Border front.

Between the two brands in the frame, this single photograph therefore serves as:

• Condition/variant reference for the rectangular three-pound H and H Blend tin, and
• Variant documentation for the Border Brand Premium Coffee “cup & saucer premium” pail that the Brands page has been asking for.

The pickle jar

The third labeled object in the frame isn’t Hoffmann-Hayman. It’s a tall clear-glass wire-bail preserving jar with a hinged glass lid, standing on top of the Border pail, and carrying a rectangular paper/foil label reading:

WINNER Brand PICKLES / SOUR PLAIN / CONTENTS 32 OZ. / Packed by Geo. W. Wilson Co. / San Antonio, TEX.

So: Geo. W. Wilson Co. of San Antonio packed 32-oz sour-plain pickles under the Winner Brand label in glass preserving jars with wire-bail seals. It’s another San Antonio food-packing firm of the same early-twentieth-century period as Hoffmann-Hayman, and the jar is included here purely for contextual San Antonio food-packing reference — an example of the city’s broader packed-goods industry that Hoffmann-Hayman was operating alongside, not a product carried or branded by the coffee company.

Provenance and use

The image is a stock photograph from Alamy (the “alamy” watermark is visible in the frame — this is the watermarked preview, not a licensed copy), dated into the project on 25 February 2023. The setup — a dusty shelf against weathered wood-plank siding with four carefully staged objects — reads like a professional editorial composition rather than a candid shelf shot, likely made either at a San Antonio antique shop or as a styled still-life for licensing. We reproduce it here as a low-resolution reference image documenting an H&H Border premium variant we do not own, alongside two Blend tins we also do not own in these specific states of wear. The preserved watermark is part of the object — it makes the provenance unambiguous.