Borza Tibor (szerk.): A Magyar Kereskedelmi és Vendéglátóipari Múzeum évkönyve 1976 (Budapest, Magyar Kereskedelmi és Vendéglátóipari Múzeum, 1976)

H. Szűcs Margit: Az egykori magyar kereskedelmi múzeum és kereskedelemtörténeti gyűjteménye

MARGIT H. SZŰCS THE FORMER HUNGARIAN MUSEUM OF COMMERCE AND ITS HISTORY OF COMMERCE COLLECTION The commercial museums of the last century were institutions for developing exports. Originally they displayed samples suitable for export or import, later they became large information offices. The establishing of the Hungarian commerce museum was the sign of quick, although late and one sided economic development in the second half of the 19th century. The results of the Budapest Industrial Exhibition in 1885 stimulated those taking part to establish a museum, using the exhibited articles, and with the support of the Ministry of Commerce. In the spring of 1887, finally, the first Hungarian exhibition of industrial articles was opened in the Iparcsarnok (Hall of Industry). The museum soon became a state institution and an aid to Hungarian exports to the Balkan Peninsula. The odd thing about this Hungarian institution is that it housed a real museum in the modern sense of the word since 1896. The grandiose Millennium Exhibition of 1896 dealt with the past of Hungarian commerce, too. It was then that historical commercial relics from the whole country were collected and shown in a special building decorated like a medieval merchant's house. The material and the conception of the exhibition can be reconstructed on the basis of contemporary catalogues, descriptions and photos. When the exhibition was closed this collection became the property of the commerce museum. After the turn of the century the commerce museum was several times reorganized and during these reorganizations it finally became an institution suitable for developing and directing the development of commerce providing information and news. The permanent exhibition was closed in 1905. After the Great War the territory of Hungary and its economic conditions changed. The commerce museum as an institution for exports lost its significance. The government, with reference to the need to economize put an end to it between 1920 and 1923. Its collection became the property of the Hungarian National Museum. How rich the collection was can be imagined when reading the transfer inventory of the National Museum which is in its archives. The archives of the former Museum of Commerce — which according to the contemporary press "Contained much both from the points of view of culture and the economy" — is rightly considered the basis of the present Museum of Commerce. 207