Postai és Távközlési Múzeumi Alapítvány Évkönyve, 1998
Rövid tartalmi összefoglaló angol nyelven
the Ganz factory to János Csonka’s design. This was the fleet of Europe’s very first motorised postal service. The Csonka motorise tricycles traversed the Budapest streets for the next twenty years. After several decades of gradual development, the rate of growth of the Post Office’s fleet faltered after 1978 due to the world oil crisis and the sudden increase in petrol prices, but by 1988 it was running more than 2000 vehicles. In 1970, 51 per cent of the vehicles were employed for carrying mail. This had fallen to 40 per cent by 1985, the remainder serving telecommunications and broadcasting. After the Hungarian Post Office was divided into three, the Post Office Garage’s fleet contracted substantially. In 1990 it had 1054 vehicles, of which it lost more than 50 per cent: firstly to telecommunications in the same year, and then to broadcasting in 1991. The Garage lost its autonomy in December 1997, and since January 1998 has been operating as the Transport Division of the Hungarian Post Office’s Postal Transport Administration. After the split, the fleet’s Volkswagen vans were joined by 100 Mercedes Benz vehicles. There are now 711 post vans running, and the remaining obsolete vehicles are planned for replacement by modem German models this year. Mrs István Szegedi: International stamp exhibitions Following the practice that has evolved over several decades, the Hungarian Post Office entries to international stamp collections are prepared by the Stamp Museum. These exhibitions are divided into the official and the honorary, which are rarer and do not usually involve competition. Over the last fifteen years the Hungarian Post Office has won silver medal in the Stockholmia ’86 exhibition, gold at the Finlandia ’88 and bronze at the Prague ’88 and Bulgaria ’89 exhibitions. In 1998 we produced three display boards each for two international exhibitions, in Prague and Fisbon. The display for Prague ’98 covered 3x16 sheets and that for Portugal ’98, 3x12 sheets. The exhibit for Prague ’98 show was Stamps for life - animals of the continents: Africa. At Portugal ’98 we presented a brief selection from the Museums’ masterpieces on Hungarian postage stamps exhibition which had met with success at the Museum of Applied Arts. The organising committees of the international stamp exhibitions produce exhibition catalogues, consisting of high-quality limited-edition booklets announcing the jury’s decisions in each category. The other exhibitors do not pass completely unrecognised: every participant receives a certificate and in most cases a medal from the organising committee. The participation and award certificates have up till now always been received on behalf of the Hungarian Post Office by the Stamp Museum, and registered and stored as collected items along with the philatelic material. Mrs Gergely Kovács: Historical commemoration of Gábor Baross Gábor Baross - the most successful Hungarian statesman of all time - was 28 years old when he became member of parliament for the Freethinking Party, formed out of the Deák Party and the Left-Centre Alliance. After eight years in parliament serving on vari252
