Bélyegmúzeum

The Budapest Stamp Museum is one of Europe's largest public collections dealing with stamp history and philately. It has operated as an independent museum since 1930.

History

The idea of founding an independent Stamp Museum arose among postal officials at the end of the 1920s. The museum opened in 1930, making the collection of outstanding significance owned by Magyar Posta accessible and viewable to the general public. The exact opening date was April 28, 1930, and the museum's first location was on the eighth floor of the Post Building at 12 Krisztina Boulevard, in a room measuring 20 × 8 metres. The exhibition hall was designed after the Nuremberg Stamp Museum. Thanks to rapid growth, the collection soon outgrew the limited space available, so in 1939 it moved to the post office building in Erzsébetváros, then newly completed and designed by architect Gyula Rimanóczy, which is now the first monument building constructed in the modern era in Hungary. The museum is still located there.

When designing the building, museum considerations were already taken into account: the mustard‑coloured tiles with stamp perforation decoration that can still be seen today, matching the atmosphere of the building and the exhibition hall, which are located in the museum’s stairwell and the marble room, were made to order at the Zsolnay factory in Pécs. In the exhibition hall, besides the tiles, there are sculptural representations of postmarks depicting the impressions of post‑stamp cancellers used before stamps. These cancellers were often made by the postmaster in the first half of the 19th century, therefore they are unique. A fine example is the Sárkeresztúr place‑ and east‑canceller, used in 1848, which shaped a post‑horn; its enlarged picture can be seen opposite the entrance to the exhibition hall. The Zsolnay factory also produced several similar‑style ceramic decorative frames, which can also be viewed in the museum.

The actual exhibition space is a single large room that at first glance resembles a huge library. The stamps are placed between recessed, metal‑framed glass panes in the wall, protected from heat, light and humidity. In the approximately 3 200 pull‑out frames of the permanent exhibition titled “Universe of Stamp History,” nearly half a million stamps and other philatelic items, documents are on display. The largest part of the permanent exhibition, and indeed the entire collection, naturally consists of Hungarian stamps.

Collections

The basis of the Hungarian collection was laid by the valuable stamps of Frigyes Poppovits Mirkó, a stamp collector from Budapest. The foreign material was largely assembled through the Bern International Postal Office from compulsory copies sent by the various states; thanks to an international agreement concluded in 1874, the Universal Postal Union headquartered in Bern sends the museum every year all stamps issued worldwide in that year. Naturally, the museum also sends each state a series, so this was essentially a simple exchange. In addition to stamps, the museum preserves stamp sketches, stamp‑cancelling tools, occasional stamps, documents, and awards won at domestic and international exhibitions.

The collection does not acquire items only in this way: many significant rarities, as well as collections, have entered the museum's holdings through gifts, purchases, or inheritance. Of course, the permanent exhibition cannot display the entire collection at once (since they preserve almost 13 million philatelic items here, this is not feasible). The private post stamps, the plans, postmarks from the pre‑stamp period, the seals, printing tools, special Hungarian and foreign rarities, as well as forgeries are visible in the permanent exhibition. Naturally, the museum also organizes periodic exhibitions, which present to the public various materials, based on different curatorial themes and aspects, that cannot be shown permanently due to space limitations. They organize graphic exhibitions, mounted exhibitions, public meetings, educational and school activities, etc. Two thematic collection fragments are also visible on the museum's website, concerning the 1871 stone‑printed stamp issue variants and the depictions of postmen. The latter includes a world rarity, the 5‑cent New Brunswick stamp issued in 1860. Its special value lies in the fact that it was printed locally, and the postmaster, Charles Connell, printed his own portrait on the stamp instead of the portrait of Queen Victoria, which led to almost the entire printed set being destroyed, and today only a few surviving copies are known, one of which is on display in Budapest.

The museum's treasures

The collection preserves many exceptionally rare, indeed world‑rarity pieces. Some of the most significant Hungarian world rarities are:

A number of the first Hungarian newspaper, the Mercurius Hungaricus.

The 1867, originally green 3 kreuzer red stamp issue printed on a full sheet. Among the red printed 5 kreuzer stamps, a 3 kreuzer stamp was accidentally inserted, thus creating the error stamp.

The 1871 engraved 2 kreuzer first issue, only the full form can be seen here. Its peculiarity is that due to shortcomings in the printing technique the first series was flawed, the portrait of Franz Joseph appears dotted, as if he had smallpox. The stamps were withdrawn and destroyed, but some were, for unknown reasons, used at the main post office in Pest. The complete sheet, which is on display in the museum, is a unique world rarity.

The Inverted Madonna, the reverse centre version of the 5000 korona denomination stamp from the Crowned Madonna series issued in 1923. One of the most valuable Hungarian error stamps. The stamp was printed in two colours, in two stages, separately for the frame and for the centre. Because of the inverted insertion, the image of the Madonna holding the Holy Crown in the centre of the stamp is rotated by 180 degrees. The error was not detected during inspection and a sheet of 100 stamps entered postal circulation.