Postai és Távközlési Múzeumi Alapítvány Évkönyve, 1997
Rövid tartalmi összefoglaló angol nyelven
The definitive general stamps continued to bear portraits of statesmen. These were sometimes used as visual aids in schools. In 1865 appeared what were billed as the world’s largest stamps, for attaching to newspapers. Measuring 51 by 95 mm, they, like other mammoth stamps issued in the world, continue to be recognized in catalogues as valid postage stamps. In 1869 the United States became the first country to issue a pictorial series on which various motifs appeared on each denomination alongside the already traditional portraits of presidents: a mounted mailman, a steam locomotive, a steamship, heraldic devices, and reproductions of two paintings. Another world’s first came in 1893, when the US Mail issued a 16-stamp Columbus set, the first in the world not to bear portraits of statesmen or rulers, or heraldic devices. The American stamps of the 19th century stand out for their fine execution and variety. Among them there are plenty of the world rarities and special variants that so delight collectors. Because of their popularity, the US Mail still issues engraved stamps in a similar style. Those mentioned here can be found in the permanent collections of the Stamp Museum. Miklós Dérszegi: Presenting the cable collection There are 64 cable-supporting concrete blocks in what might almost be described as a stonework collection. They have been placed in the arcade at the Telephone Museum, in the open-air storage area at Rákospalota Telephone Exchange, and in the yard at Nagyvázsony Postal Museum. The blocks are typical of cable lines. They were underground, as cable-joint protectors, and as markers for cable lines laid underground. The most valuable among them is a founding block with a tablet attached recording that it was the 25,000th to be incorporated into the Budapest cable system. This is at the Telephone Museum. Joint markers were used locally, within communities, or on overland lines. There is a special, taller type of the second for use on agricultural land. The collection also includes elements used underground: concrete sheaths for two sizes of cable, and a small coil underlay plate. The outdoor store at Rákospalota holds the concrete elements for bunching pipe-clusters in the underground plastic-pipe system, the intermediate and end pieces for collared bunchers, and the concrete supporting stocks. All the pieces in the collection are products of the former central postal cable-laying organization: the Concrete Block-Making Unit at Dunakeszi, belonging to the Postal Central Cable Works and its successors. The main products initially were concrete foundation blocks and conduits with several cable apertures. In the 1970s the unit began to make the bunching pieces for the underground plastic-pipe system: concrete collars, stocks and sheaths for bends in the PVC piping, and other concrete blocks previously made elsewhere in the Post. Later in the same decade, the range was extended to include reinforced-concrete cable boxes, rein- forced-concrete grids for cable boxes made on site, and ready-mix concrete. The Postal Managing Directorate decided in 1981 that the unit should provide concrete elements for the postal directorate and the Budapest telephone directorate, as well as the cable works. Initially the unit worked manually, on a small scale. This changed gradually as the 266
