H and H Coffee

Dedicated to the history of the Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee Co. founded 1899 in San Antonio, Texas.

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While traveling in South Texas, we made a day stop in Three Rivers, the home of the glassworks that made the square H and H Crystalvac line. Michael David Smith’s TEXAS GLASS is what first tied the plant to Hoffmann-Hayman for us. The image below, page 50, is a Charles Arnott photograph of a clear and an amber one-pound square jar, with the type line in the book reading (l—r) clear H & H Coffee, amber H & H Coffee — the same comparison pair that led this trip, so we were not in town to guess at embossings from memory alone.

TEXAS GLASS, Michael David Smith, p. 50 — photograph Charles Arnott, clear and amber H and H Coffee one-pound square jars (l—r)

We walked into the first antique shop in town, The Goodie Box on Highway 72. There was no H and H stock on the floor that day, but we still picked up more regional Three Rivers embossed bottles and more copies of the glass reference book.

The dealer on duty, Denise Salvagno, phoned her friend Debbie Keneson, a collector with a booth in Comfort. Debbie had a Crystalvac on hand — a large, clear H and H one-pound jar — and agreed to keep it for us to pick up at the Comfort Antique Mall the next day so we could pay and take it with us.

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