A Coffee Whistle?

A small, light-wood quail- or call-type slide whistle, probably a mid-century grocery or radio-sponsor freebie: a notched end for the mouth, a square central body, a separate rounded end plug, and a tan kraft-paper label on the block with the pack copy in black block capitals — A package of on one face, H. and H. coffee on the next, with small chips and wear to the label edges. The form reads as a field-style bird call or toy, not a factory tool, but the H. and H. coffee type on the kraft is in the same block-capital, band-label style as other H. and H. coffee paper in the collection, even if the roaster is not certain on this one.

Hoffmann-Hayman is still an incomplete paper trail. We bought the piece on eBay in June 2014 knowing the item might not attach to the San Antonio roaster. The string H. and H. coffee is a generic enough phrase in isolation that another regional packer could have ordered the same premium. A Texas bird-call shape and the bobwhite name on the eBay line were a weak geographic and cultural nudge, not a proof, but an eighteen-dollar question mark is worth cataloging on the off chance a grocery circular or trade ad names the roaster. If nothing ever lines up, the entry is easy to re-file.