Eminent Philatelists I.

Magyar Posta is launching a new series of thematic personalised stamps entitled Eminent Philatelists to honour emblematic figures in Hungarian philatelic life. The first personality commemorated in this series is Count Miklós Dessewffy. Eight thousand copies of the stamp with a label designed by the graphic artist Imre Benedek were produced.

Count Miklós Dessewffy was one of the earliest notable figures in Hungarian philately and the author of the first Hungarian book on philately, entitled The Postage and Newspaper Stamps of Hungary 1871-1898. It was he who discovered the retouches on the krajcár postage stamps and became the first major researcher in the field. In the second half of the 19^th century he arranged his collection of revenue stamps, presumably the oldest such Hungarian collection, according to perforation, watermark and colour variations. This collection included contemporary document stamps counterfeited at the expense of the treasury on complete documents, a practice which was ahead of its time.He was so well known and held in such high regard that his portrait appeared on a commemorative stamp at the 1922 Stamp Week four years after his death. The label for the stamp shows part of the commemorative stamp with a photograph of Count Miklós Dessewffy in the foreground. The original version is on the wall of Donors in the Stamp Museum.