H and H Master Chef Two Pound Tin

A large two-pound cylindrical keywind tin in bright red, carrying the redesigned mid-century Master Chef label: the angled yellow-and-black “H AND H” tag tucked into the upper left of a tall white italic “Master Chef” script, the chef illustration with toque holding a steaming cup, and a yellow starburst banner reading “COFFEE” in red block letters at the bottom. A narrow “PULVERIZED” grind-type banner shows along the top edge where the keywind strip once wrapped the body. Same label family as the one-pound Master Chef tins already in the collection — the post-redesign era that replaced the earlier paper-label Master Chef design still represented by the Etsy-sourced comparison image. The lid is its own artifact: badly rusted but still legible, printed in white on red with a “SPECIAL OFFER — Save $5.75” premium for a “West Bend 8 Cup Automatic Electric Percolator” at $6.25 (a $12.00 value), redeemable by mailing cash or money order along with the last inch of the unwinding band to “MASTER CHEF, P.O. Box 14, West Bend, Wis.,” with the copy noting a Master Chef Instant Coffee label could substitute for the band. The West Bend, Wisconsin mailing address sits oddly alongside the San Antonio origins of H and H and is worth keeping an eye on — the Master Chef brand may have run its own premium-offer operation out of the same Wisconsin town that made the percolator.

We picked up this example in Springfield, Missouri, via eBay in January 2023. It arrived in fair shape — rim rust and scratches in the paint — with the original premium-offer lid. Another two-pound Master Chef in the collection is missing its lid.