I am not a stamp collector myself but many, many stamps have been accmulated by me in the course of the last years. They, most probably, do not have the collector’s value but as a material to paint with they are very much valuable for me. They idea, the thought behind the pictures appears usually when I sort the stamps. This was the situation in this case too.

 

I was sorting a new package of stamps when an interesting series drew my attention. The series imagined a cropping pair. The Hungarian Royal Post used this motive for many years starting from 1916 to the year of 1924. I discovered that these stamps track he history very well. The First Hungarian People’s Republic was proclaimed after the Aster Revolution in 1918 and in this period the „Köztársaság” (Republic) overprint was used. In the end of the Great War the Serbian-Croatian-Slovenian Kingdom was founded as well. They used also stamps originally issued by Hungary, the cropping pair, but used the „SHS” (Serbsko-Horvatsko-Slovensko) overprint. In 1919 Hungary became to be for a short time to be Hungarian Soviet Republic (Tanácsköztársaság) thus the Post of this time applied the „Tanácsköztársaság” for several months. In the same year Hungary was occupied by the winning powers among them by Romanian troops in the Eastern part of the country. And again the same stamps were used but now with the „Regatul Romaniei” overprint. When the Romaian troops withdrew from the sacked Budapest Miklós Horthy entered the capital at the helm of the newly founded National Army. And thus the new overprint arrived for the cropping pair: „A nemzeti hadsereg bevonulása. 1919.XI.16.” (Entering of the National Army). In the end of the formarly alien Austria proclaimed their territorial caims for a part of West-Hungary. This territorial claim was approved by the Trianon Treaty but when the Austrian troops entered the West-Hungarian territories in 1921 to occupy them according to the Treaty they were met by Hungarian forces who managed to rebut them. This was the beginning of the West-Hungarian appraisal so again, a new overprint came for the cropping pair: „Nyugatmagyarország Orszvé. és Westungarn Orgland” meaning organized national defense.

 

How intersting this is! One does not have to read a long hstory book but put along several stamps and history would open up at once!