COVER N. 775 - HUNGARY

Postmark: Balatonalmádi 05.10.2026 

Posted on 5th October;  Received on the 8th October 2026

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Fast mail! Just 4 days between sending and receiving for a much appreciated letter from Hungary, with some nice stamps both inside and out. Not bad at all. Köszönöm szépen, Hóka! 

Hungary is also not that frequent a port of call here on my blog so I was extra pleased to see my box had been served with a cover with some Magyar stamps on it. Nice!

Traditional costumes is a theme that I find quite interesting, since clothes can really carry within themselves (design, materials, shapes, colours)  the distinctive traits of a human group, be it a vey localised, hence small one or of a nation or a country, as a whole.

Add to that the fact that cultures take immense pride in their distinctive symbols and it is easy to understand that sometimes even the humblest garment, made out of the most common and readily available materials  can be  skilfully manufactured and presented as a national treasure, which indeed it can be.

This is of course true for both popular and elite garments and more often than not even if the latter can exhibit more sophisticated or complex designs with better quality materials, constituents of the former are integrated into them, thus protecting their national identity, their national soul.

In our days.  when a large proportion of the world population tends to dress in a totally globalised way (myself included, of course), most times more concerned with manufacturer's labels than with real comfort or durability, traditional clothes, be it high or low end, are a pointer to the history of who we are and can be read as a book... most often than not, a beautifully illustrated one!

In 2016 Magyar Posta issued the first two stamps of a series dedicated to historical dresses that has recently seen its 5th issue, with the two se-tenant 440 forints stamps on the cover, issued on 15JUL2026.

They are illustrated with the male and female version of  a traditional Hungarian court dress of the 19th century, presumably from the times when the country was part of the Dual Monarchy, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which lasted from 1867 till the end of the Great War, in 1918.

 

Two more stamps were used to post the cover, these belonging to a set of six stamps with the same denomination - 300 forints - issued on 25OCT2022, designated "Coats of Arms of the King of the House of Árpád".

The House of Árpád was the first royal dynasty of Hungary and it ruled first the Principality of Hungary in the 9th and 10th centuries and later  the Kingdom of Hungary from 1000 to 1301.

The stamps show the coats of arms of the rulers from 1196 till 1301 inscribed in coins,  the one on the face of the cover being that of  Stephen V (1270-1272) and the one in the back, that of Emeric (1196-1204).

Postmark from Balatonalmádi, a town of about 8.500 inhabitants, located on the shore of... Lake Balaton, of course.