Hungary: post-communist coinage

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Map of Hungary.

Until the end of the First World War, Hungary was part of the dual monarchy of the Austro-Hungarian empire, but it became the independent Kingdom of Hungary.

From Wikipedia:

The new borders set in 1920 by the Treaty of Trianon ceded 72% of the historically Hungarian territory of the Kingdom of Hungary to the neighbouring states. The beneficiaries were Romania, the newly formed states of Czechoslovakia, and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later known as Yugoslavia).

Today, large numbers of indigenous Hungarians are found in Romania, Slovakia, Serbia and Ukraine, and to a lesser extent also in Austria, Slovenia and Croatia.

During World War 2, Hungary fought on the side of the Axis, before switching to the Allied side in 1944. It was occupied by Soviet troops after the war, who pressured the country to become a republic and allow the communists to take over the government. The Hungarians rebelled against communist rule in 1956, but Hungary was invaded by Soviet troops and other forces of the Warsaw pact, who brutally put down the rebellion.


Under the influence of Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, the Hungarian communist government began liberalising its regime in the late 1980s.

From Wikipedia:

On 2 May 1989, the first visible cracks in the Iron Curtain appeared when Hungary began dismantling its 150 mile long border fence with Austria. This increasingly destabilized the German Democratic Republic and Czechoslovakia over the summer and autumn, as thousands of their citizens illegally crossed over to the West through the Hungarian-Austrian border. The resulting exodus shook East Germany and hastened the fall of the Berlin Wall.

On 1 June 1989 the Communist Party admitted that former Prime Minister Imre Nagy, hanged for treason for his role in the 1956 Hungarian uprising, was executed illegally after a show trial. On 16 June 1989 Nagy was given a solemn funeral on Budapest's largest square, followed by a hero's burial.

On 23 October, Mátyás Szűrös declared Hungary a republic. The state party agreed to give up its monopoly on power, paving the way for free elections in March 1990. The party's name was changed from the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party to simply the Hungarian Socialist Party, but the 1990 election was won by the centre-right Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF). As Gorbachev looked on, Hungary changed political systems with scarcely a murmur and the last Soviet troops left Hungary in June 1991.

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The first coins of the new republic were issued in 1990. Disappointingly, only denominational subunits were issued at first, namely only the "filler" denominations and not forints. The second disappointment was that the coins retained the designs of the communist era, and only the country name was changed. Magyar Népköztársaság, the People's Republic of Hungary, was changed to simply Magyar Köztársaság, the Republic of Hungary.

New 2, 5, 10, 20 and 50 filler coins were minted, but the 2 and 5 filler coins appeared only in mint sets and were not issued into circulation. Above you see examples of the old and new 50 filler coins (dated 1986 and 1990) side by side.

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Images (not to scale) of the new 10 and 20 filler coins of 1990.

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The second stage came in 1992, when the forint denominations were issued: 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 forint coins.

Despite the fact that Hungary was still a republic, the 1, 10 and 100 forint coins showed the royal Hungarian coat of arms, including the crown of St Stephen, on the obverse, and the denomination on the reverse. The images below are not to scale.

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The other denominations of the new design series featured birds and flowers on their obverse.























1     forint.  Royal Coat of Arms.
2     forint.  Hungarian meadow saffron. 
5     forint.  White egret.
10   forint.  Royal Coat of Arms.
20   forint.  Iris.                             
50   forint.  Saker falcon.
100 forint.  Royal Coat of Arms.

 

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Here are the reverses of some of the coins (not to scale).

The overlapping of the numerals gives the coins a distinctive look.

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From 1996 a smaller bimetallic version of the 100 forint coin was issued into circulation.

It had a brass-plated steel centre within an outer steel ring.

Curiously, the final issue of the larger brass coin was also dated 1996.


The coin above is a trial version of the bimetallic 100 forint coin.

The circulating version does not carry the word PROBAVERET (trial).

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In 2009 the first circulating 200 forint coin was issued.

It is bimetallic, with a copper-nickel center within a nickel-brass ring.

It depicts the Chain Bridge of Budapest.

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Here you see the designs that were considered for the new 200 forint coin.

The public voted for the winning Chain Bridge design.

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Since the 1st January 2012, Hungary's official country name no longer includes the word "republic".

Its name on the coinage was changed in 2012 to appear as MAGYARORSZÁG, instead of "Magyar Köztársaság".

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Interestingly, apart from Hungary, of the European post-communist states only Czechoslovakia kept any of the old communist designs, though it removed elements of them, such as the communist stars, and a hammer and a sickle. However, Hungary kept only some of the old designs; Czechoslovakia recycled them all.

See: Czechoslovakia's short-lived post-communist coinage

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See also:

01] Bessarabia, Moldavia, Moldova and Transnistria.

02] Coinage of Belarus.

03] Coinage of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

04] Coinage of modern Serbia.

05] Coinage of North Macedonia.

06] Coinage of the Czech Republic.

07] Croatia: post-Yugoslav coinage.

08] Czechoslovak heroes on post-communist circulation coins.

09] Hungary: post-communist coinage.

10] Poland: Design series of 1995.

11] Post-communist coinage of Albania.

12] Post-communist coinage of Lithuania.

13] Post-communist coinage of Romania.

14] Slovakia's first post-communist coin series.

15] Slovenia: post-Yugoslav coinage.

16] Romanian and Moldovan Variations of the 1990s.

17] The final coin series of Yugoslavia.