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Hungarian Silver Coinage
After World War II

Tom Babinszki, WINS #919

At the beginning of World War II, in 1940 the Kingdom of Hungary stopped issuing the silver pengo and replaced it with aluminum coins. In August, 1946 the currency of Hungary became the Forint. In 1946, the value of the Hungarian Forint was approximately 11.70 USD.

In February, 1946 Hungary was declared a republic, and in 1948 the Social Democratic Party was forced to merge with the Communist Party, preparing the full communist takeover. In 1949, the country's name became the People's Republic of Hungary.

During this short lived era of the Hungarian republic 5 silver coins were issued.

In 1946, a 5 Forint coin, commemorating Lajos Kossuth was issued in a mintage of 39,802. The weight of the coin is 20 G with a silver fineness of 0.835.

1947 5 Forints obverse

1947 5 Forints reverse   In 1947, 10,004,252 of the Kossuth 5 Forints were
  minted, but the weight of the coin was lowered to
  12 G with 50 percent silver content.

In 1948, when the Communist Party was already much more influential, three silver commemorative coins were issued for the centenary of the 1848 Revolution. All of these coins had a fifty percent silver content.

5 Forint, commemorating Sándor Petofi, 12 G, 32 MM, mintage 100,000.

1947 5 Forints obverse 1947 5 Forints reverse
1947 5 Forints obverse 1947 5 Forints reverse   10 Forint, commemorating Istvan Széchenyi, also referred to as the "greatest Hungarian", 20 G, 36 MM, mintage 100,000.
 

20 Forint, commemorating Mihály Táncsics, 28 G, 40 MM, mintage 50,000.

1948 20 Forint obverse 1948 20 Forint reverse

In these years most of the Hungarian people had parents or grandparents who participated in the revolution or fought in the freedom fight of 1848-49, thus this centenary was very close to the people's hearts. In addition, the similarity between the Habsburg oppression and the communist takeover was obvious. Symbols of the revolution had to be chosen carefully to represent the importance of the revolution while aligning them with the Soviet communist ideology. Interestingly, Petofi, who is probably the most well-known, but at least the most quoted of all, being the most productive Hungarian poet received the smallest coin. The least known of the three people, Mihály Táncsics received the largest coin, possibly because he was closest to an ideal communist, with his peasant origin, becoming a teacher and imprisoned for his revolutionary articles.

Numismatists debate whether the five silver coins were used in circulation, which is possible due to the higher mintage.




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