Broncho Coffee Tin

We’ve been looking for this tin for 10 years! It has one of our favorite stories from the beginning and involves the TV series, American Pickers.

How did we know about Broncho Coffee? We found newspaper advertisements and it is listed on the original sales forms in the factory. As far as age, this tin was produced after March of 1917 when H&H bought Morrison Coffee, making it older than the coffee factory (1932) and over 100 years old.

We got it in an eBay auction, and it arrived from Missoula, Montana. This is only the second Broncho tin we’ve ever seen. As we suspected from other H and H products, the Broncho tin displays “Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee Co.” on the side. We’re super happy to add it to the collection after a 10 year search.

The Internet shows the source auction at Brian Lebel’s Old West Events on Jan 20, 2023, lot 358 in Mesa, Arizona, two old west tins, Broncho coffee and Sunset Trail cigars.

H and H Broncho Coffee, Three Pound Tin with wire handle

A large three-pound cylindrical pail in deep blue, with the same pictorial label wrapped across the front and back: an ornate red-and-gold banner scroll reading “BRONCHO” above a central vignette of a cowboy on a bucking horse across a dusty plain, a small chuck wagon and figure in the middle distance, hills on the horizon, and wheat-like sprigs framing the scene. Below the vignette a red banner carries “PREMIUM COFFEE” in yellow block letters. The side panels run a smaller yellow-bordered “BRONCHO / PREMIUM COFFEE / 100% PURE COFFEE / Cup tested and blended for the particular coffee drinker” inset beneath “Three Pounds Net Weight” stamped into the tin. A heavy wire bail handle rides over the top; the pry-off press-fit lid has rusted bare over the decades, but the side and front graphics are whole and all the copy still reads.