Postage Stamps of Hungary

by Tony Clayton

Kingdom of Hungary

Second Envelope type <<-- : -->> Charity Issues

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Turul Bird Issues

Because of a currency change Hungary issued a new design of stamps on the 1st January 1900, with the filler values showing a Turul bird (a mythical bird of the Magyars) and the korona values showing a portrait of King Francis Joseph.

The initial issue was printed on paper showing the Crown of St.Stephen sideways surrounded by circles. In 1904 this was replaced by an upright crown in a 3-dimensional representation, which was replaced in turn 4 years later by a 2-dimensional representation. This latter type was modified in 1909 - it is difficult to distinguish the two.

Finally, in 1913, a new watermark of a completely different appearance was used, with a representation of St.Stephens Cross joined by wavy lines. This occurs both upright and, less commonly, sideways for 14 of the 20 values. Thus it can be seen that no less than 6 different watermarks are to found, causing the collector some entertainment in trying to sort them all out.

In addition, the perforation changes. The main gauge used until 1905 was 12x11¾ comb, which covers the first two watermarks. Then there was a change to Perf 15, which occurs with some of the second watermark and all subsequent types. Finally a line perf 11½ is known with the first (crown and circles) watermark, but is scarce to rare.

First Watermark, Perf 12x11¾ comb (1st January 1900)

n.b. the illustrations of the 2 and 5 korona are from later issues

1 filler grey SG 64	1 filler violet-grey SG 64b	2 filler olive-yellow SG 65
3 filler orange SG 66	4 filler mauve SG 67	5 filler emerald SG 68
6 filler claret SG 69	6 filler purple-brown SG 69b	6 filler brownish bistre SG 70
6 filler drab SG 70b	10 filler rose-red SG 71	12 filler lilac SG 72
20 filler brown SG 73	25 filler blue SG 74	30 filler orange-brown SG 75
35 filler purple SG 76	50 filler lake SG 77	60 filler olive-green SG 78
1 korona brown-red SG 79	2 korona grey-blue SG 114	3 korona blue-green SG 81
	5 korona dull claret SG 135A

Second Watermark, Perf 12x11¾ comb (1st November 1904)

The same denominations were used, except for the 4 filler and 3 korona. The 6 filler continued in drab. The 50 filler was issued in deep claret in error, but is more common than the normal lake.

Second Watermark, Perf 15 (29th November 1905)

As for the previous type, with the exception of the 5 korona, which does not exist in perf 15 with this watermark..

Third Watermark, Perf 15 (1908)

A new value, the 16 filler, was issued on 1st February 1913. The 5 korona did not appear until 1910.

16 filler deep blue-green SG 106

Fourth Watermark, Perf 15 (22nd August 1913)

With this issue three paper colour changes took place. The 12 filler used yellow paper, the 50 filler used blue paper, and at some stage the 60 filler also appeared on rose paper as well as the usual white.

12 filler lilac on yellow SG 122A

50 filler lake on blue SG 128A

60 filler olive-green on rose SG 130A

Two new values, 70 and 80 filler, were issued on 1st October 1916.

70 filler brown and green SG 131A

80 filler violet SG 132A

At the same time a rare error crept in to the value plate of the 50 filler, with one position (13) having a 35 instead of the 50 in at least part of the printing. Used examples are very rare indeed.

50f lake on blue paper, error of value SG 128Aa

Second Envelope type <<-- : -->> Charity Issues

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