Household Institute three-piece percolator

The listing read like an H and H aluminum pot, so we took a closer look. The piece is a three-part stovetop percolator: a tall brushed-aluminum carafe with a triangular spout and a long black side handle, a smaller cylindrical upper chamber with faint level marks and a short matching handle, and a slightly domed lid with a small black knob. The lower metal is darker and more scuffed than the brighter upper stack—honest stovetop wear from decades of use, not a factory exhibit piece.

Bakelite (or a similar early thermoset) on the handles and knob gives the heat clearance those riveted parts needed; it was one of the first plastics used that way in kitchenware.

The bottom stamp settles the name: a circular manufacturer mark reading Household Institute and Cooking Utensils, with PAT. NO. 76,507 and ALUMINUM around a twin-H monogram. That is Household Institute’s interlocking “HH,” not the San Antonio Hoffmann–Hayman H and H coffee line—so we file it as coffee history and a useful lesson in reading listings twice.