Hírközlési Múzeumi Alapítvány, Évkönyv, 2005

Rövid tartalmi összefoglaló angol nyelven

its own switchboard, opening in 1880 at Fürdő Street. This article focuses on the 130-year history of telephony in the light of advances in telephone receivers.

Éva Grünwald Kozina: A special document and how it was restored

As the author notes, a very special document that was in very poor condition, one prepared for the XI Universal Postal Congress in Buenos Aires in 1949, was restored in the summer of 2004 in a very exciting process. At the time it was believed that the item, which had not been inventoried, was the only copy of its kind, but by the time the restoration was finished it was discovered that there was an undamaged copy in the image and illustration section of the collection. The document, written in French and described in the current paper, is an unusual review of a congress, for in most cases these documents include photographic tableaux of the participants. This document, however, contains ink sketches of the delegates of the various countries, most of them in the process of addressing the gathering, drawn by artist Ramon Columba (1891-1959).

Mrs. János Solymosi: Stamp Museum marks 75th birthday

The Stamp Museum, established by the Royal Hungarian Post Office in 1930 and operating within the framework of the Communications Museum Foundation since 1990 was the first museum in the world whose collection consisted entirely of stamps, and artefacts and documents related to stamps. When founded it had a collection of 56 000 stamps, now up to nearly 13 million. The collection includes almost every stamp issued in the world, and the display Universe-Stamp History is presenting 550 000 of them in a permanent exhibit. In this paper, the author reports on the renovation, remodelling and exhibition planning operations preceding the 75th anniversary and the openings of the displays marking the occasion. Finally, she reviews the history of the museum including the building that houses it and how the collection grew, and touches on the major patrons of the museum, whom she mentions by name.

Erzsébet Angyal: Codeword “Masterpieces”

Marking the 75th anniversary of the Stamp Museum is an exhibit organized by the author under the above name. It consists of stamp designs collected between 1936 and 1945 that were entered in competitions for stamp designs but were never made up into stamps. The designs are currently in the museum’s graphics archives. According to the author, the display is strictly limited to the period in question and the designs on show have been carefully selected. Not only did the author limit the number of designs on show, she also drew the line on the competitions in which they were entered. In fact, the designs shown were entered in only about one-third of the period’s competitions. At the same time, the display presents the designs chosen to indicate the different approaches to the same task coming from different artists. One consideration when making the selection was the intent to present the works of as many artists as possible. These artists are unknown as stamp designers for although they entered the contests, no stamps were printed or distributed from their designs.

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