Postai és Távközlési Múzeumi Alapítvány Évkönyve, 1997
Rövid tartalmi összefoglaló angol nyelven
research conference at Budapest Technical University. The museum was represented at the meeting of the commemorative stamp committee that agreed on the stamp subjects for the year 2000. In October the museum received a visit from the Romanian postal minister, postal managing director and philatelic association president, the president of the Bavarian Stamp Collectors’Association, and several Romanian and German collectors. The Romanian minister presented the museum with an 1869 stamp catalogued Y25. Several exhibitions were mounted to coincide with World Postal Day. An international jury awarded a special prize to the museum’s display at the Mofila International Exhibition at the Déri Museum. Visitors included the participants in the László Surányi memorial meeting, trainer printers from the Light Industry Technical College, and pupils of the Csengeri utca Primary School. In November the museum received a gift from collectors in Mór, consisting of commemorative postcards and a stamp design from Switzerland dedicated by the designer József Vertei. Dealers Hungarofila held a press conference in the museum. In December, misprinted 3-krajcár red stamps of 1867 (see next article), were deposited with the museum after being bought at auction. Mafitt and the Mihály Gervay Foundation held meetings of their presiding committees at the museum, for which a small display was made. Gabriella Nikodém: The 3-krajcár red misprints of 1867 The stamps issued in 1867 are the Hungarian series that have aroused most controversy. For a long time, the Hungarian Post took the position that the first Hungarian postage stamp was the one printed at the state printing press in 1870 and issued in 1871. However, Hungary became responsible for its own postal services on May 1,1867, with the Austro- Hungarian Compromise. The newly independent Hungarian postal authority wanted to issue its own stamps, but for want of a suitable printing press in Hungary, it ordered the first stamps from the Vienna state printing press. However, time was too short to produce the Hungarian stamps planned. As an interim solution, stamps with the same design as Austria’s were produced for use in Hungary. That produced the curious situation in which two separate postal authorities were issuing stamps with the same design. The only way to decide whether a stamp is Austrian or Hungarian is by the postmark. It is Hungarian if it has been franked at a Hungarian post office. The letter stamps were printed on plates containing 400 blocks dividing into four sheets of 100—10 by 10. However, a 3-krajcár block found its way by mistake into one of the 5- krajcár plates. So the sheets from this plate contain a colour misprint: a red stamp with a value of 3 krajcár. These sheets were all used in Hungary, between the end of August and the middle of October 1867. By the beginning of this century, three used copies of the misprint and one on a letter were known. The misprints on complete covers, postmarked Kőbánya, only turned up in 1938. The Pfeiffer family, fleeing to Budapest from Vienna after the Anschluss with Germany, brought with them their commercial correspondence. This correspondence was bought by the Hungarian stamp collector László Gaál, who found two letters postmarked 252
