A Numismatic History of Hungary

Nagyszüleim magyarok voltak. My grandparents were Hungarians. Actually, the empire being what it was, my grandmother's father was Croatian. Her maiden name was Kovanics (originally Covanic). My grandfather's passport to America said that he was "German-Hungarian." But I know nothing else about that. Growing up, English was the official language of the house. But you get some relatives together and someone says, "Please" and someone else says, "Thank you" and then "You're welcome." And everyone is speaking Hungarian... except the in-laws... and it goes back into English. (And we never hung out with the Marotta side of the family because they never got over the divorce.) 

Kálmán (Coloman) the Learned (b 1070 r. 1095-1116). The historians are mixed in the evaluation of Kálmán’s reign. Generally, they are favorable. His emphasis on learning and education easily stemmed from his own physical handicaps. He survived and ascended the crown on the basis of his wits, not his strength.  1 denar (Huszar 37)

Louis I of Anjou (b 1326 r 1342-1384). …  he also confirmed the liberties of the Hungarian nobility at the Diet of 1351, emphasizing the equal status of all noblemen. At the same Diet, he …confirmed the right to free movement for all peasants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_I_of_Hungary

The Saracen’s head on the obverse is supposedly a pun on the name of courtier Count Szerecsen. However, the etymology of the family name likely points back to “Moors” from Constantinople.

1 denar Obv :MONETA LUDOVICI. Rev: REGIS HVNGARIE

Maximilian II (1527-1576 r 1562-1576) “Though a Habsburg and a Catholic, he approached the Lutheran Imperial estates with a view to overcome the denominational schism,… He also was faced with the ongoing Ottoman–Habsburg wars and rising conflicts with his Habsburg Spain cousins… Maximilian failed to achieve his three major aims: rationalizing the government structure, unifying Christianity, and evicting the Turks from Hungary… 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor

1 denier 0.52 grams 15.8mm 1568 Kremnitz 

Malcontents Revolt 

1, 10, and 20 Poltura.  The 1 is struck as expected. The 10 and 20 were rolled.  

1 Obv Mary with Sword and Christ Child HVGARIAE PATRONA. Rev Coat of Arms POLTURA 1706. 10- and 20-poltura PRO LIBERTATE (date) Coat of Arms. The Malcontents were Hungarian nobles who sought to re-establish themselves after the Turks were pushed out of Hungary by the Hapsburg armies. Their leader was Prince Ferenc II Rákóczi. The “Rákóczi March” is best known from its use in Hector Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust(1846). It may date only to 1730, but always has been identified with Hungarian nationalism, especially in resistance to the Hapsburgs. 

1848 Revolution

“When France sneezes, Europe catches cold.” Liberal, nationalist revolts broke out across Europe, the political expression of Romanticism that was typified by the music of Chopin and Liszt, and paintings of Eugene Delecroix, iconically, Liberty Leading the People(1830). 

Left (six kreutzer; billon silver; .220 fine Craig 67)

Top

VALTO PENZ (“draft money”) 6 Coat of Arms K MAGYAR KIRALYI (of the Hungarian king).

Bottom

HAT KRAJCZÁR 1848 

Right (20 Kreutzer silver Craig 69)

Obv: V FERD MAGY H T ORSZ KIRÁLYA ERD N FEJED (Ferdinand V, Hungarian, Croatian (Hrvetska) and Slavic (Toth) Countries King [and of] Transylvania (Erdély) Grand Prince.

Rev:MAGY.OR.VÉDŐJE 1848 SZ.MÁRIA IST. ANNYA (Hungary’s national protector 1848 Saint Mary God’s Mother) (These two legends and translations from Numista.com)

Ferdinand V actually abdicated in 1848, giving the crown to Franz Josef. As with other revolts, for example Texas against Mexico, the first claim was for a prior constitutional legitimacy. 

The Hapsburg Dual Monarchy. 

Following the collapse of the 1848 Revolution, continued pressure for reform won the Hungarians special status in a sham dual monarchy in which their “king” was the crown prince of Austria. As Austria moved into the modern world of steam engines and indoor plumbing, the currency was reformed in 1892 from the Florin-Kreutzer (forint-krajczár) silver-copper to corona-heller (korona-filler; filler from German “vierer” = “fourer” or 4-penny groschen). 

Left top left : obverse Ferenc Joszef I (Imperial Kaiser of Austria Czechs Transylvania Hungary Croatia Serbia Dalmatia Apostolic King) Right top left reverse Hungarian Kingdom 1879. 

Left top Right: 4 Kreuzer coat of arms.

Left bottom Left: 1 korona on Latin Monetary system; about 20 cents US.

Left bottom right: MAGYAR KIRALYI VALTOPENZ (Hungarian royal draft money, i.e., base metal nickel token like a US 5-cent, nickel two of which get you a silver dime; in this case 100 copper filler to the silver korona ).

Right bottom right: 10 filler.

The Twentieth Century: Fascism... Communism...
Left MAGYAR KIRALYSAG (Hungarian Kingdom. Actually a fascist "regency" holding place for a missing king). 1 Pengö The word "pengö" while loosely derived perhaps from "pfennig" is an onomatopoeia for "bingle" meaning that it rang like silver versus collapsing like paper. This coin was 0.640 fine, 0.1029 troy oz actual silver weight.

Not that the Reds do not appreciate expediency. Center: Kossuth Lajos obverse; national coat of arms reverse. 5 Forint 1947 .1929 troy oz net silver as 12 grams 0.500 fine. (The coins of 1946 were 20 grams 0.835 fine Latin Monetary Standard but communism is expensive.) "MAGYAR KÖZTÁRSASÁG" (Hungarian Republic. But you need to understand the root word KÖZ as in  "community" and "collective" and from there to "village" and thence "public" things.

Far right. Commorative for Sándor Csoma de Kőrös who taught himself philology and then walked to Tibet in search of the ancestral home of the Hungarians. It was not there... but he did write the first western dictionary and grammar of the Tibetan language while in the employ of the British consulate. Reverse legend is MAGYAR NEPKÖZTÁRSASÁG (Hungarian People's Republic.)

When first issued in 1914, it was worth 50 korona, about $10 US.

They lost the war, but could have won the peace. 

It was just that fascism got in the way.

 10 Pengö 1936

 Inflation after World War II. Tied to Germany by ideology, Hungary killed her Jews and Gypsies and sent her soldiers to the Eastern Front. When she signed a separate peace with the USSR in 1945 to forestall a Russian occupation, Germany invaded Hungary and finished the job. Assuming that you can always make soup from the bones that were picked clean, the Russians moved in. One Billion... One Billion Millions... and 100, 000 New Billions. Gotta give the engraver credit for working through hard times.

10 Forint 1969. Face: Sándor Petőfi, national poet, revolutionary from 1848. Ironic on many levels as he likely died in Russia, captured after the Battle of Segesvar, when the Russians came to the aid of the Austrian monarchy.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Linguistics Debate: What Colors are Your Rainbow?

The Living Fish Swims Under Water

Forbidden Planet

My Grandmother and Science

Sándor Kőrösi Csoma

The Akkadian Roots of Modern Semitic Languages

The Atlatl

The throwing stick was invented about 30,000 years ago. It extends the arm giving force (as range and speed) to a spear. Used widely across North and South America, it also is known from Europe, but more widely throughout Indonesia and Australia. The Aborigines call it the woomera and it can be the core of a “Swiss Army Knife” that serves many purposes.  

 

A Dog named “Moose” and his Mistress with Atlatl

The distribution of the atlatl opens discussions that can lead down intellectual rabbit holes into speculative wonderlands. It was not well-known across all of Europe and finds are centered in France. The bow-and-arrow became the dominant distance weapon in the Old World, though the atlatl continued alongside it in America. The bow was not imported to or invented in Australia. 

• The atlatl in OutdoorLife dot com 
• International Competition in 2019 
• The World Atlatl Association at BasketMaker 
• This 19^thcentury example at The British Museum shows righthandedness (which the hammer and screwdriver do not). 
• This one from Eastern Hudson’s Bay shown at Pitt Rivers Museum UK is very similar to 
• the Australian version seen on Don’s Maps here.

The word atlatl comes directly from the language of the Aztecs, Nahuatl. Nouns end in (a)tl. Cocoa is xocolatl. The jaguar is the ocelotl. The dog is the coyototl. And, yes, out there, where the gods came from is the Atlantic ocean. Make of it what you will, because the distribution of the spear thrower seems to be from West to East, across the Pacific to the Americas. The truth may be that like cotton the atlatl was imported to the Old World from the New in prehistoric times.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Art as Ordered Narrative 

The Akkadian Roots of Modern Semitic Languages 

The Living Fish Swims Under Water 

The Problem of Cultural Patrimony 

Barack Obama, American 

The Living Fish Swims Under the Water

My Google email account associated with this blog is uszik11@gmail.com.  It is a pun. I took USZIK ELEVEN from what is supposed to be one phrase mutually intelligible in Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian.  “The living fish swims under water.” You can google the phrase for articles dedicated to it.

ISO map of the Uralic languages from Wikipedia

The proposition was offered by Mall Hellam, a scholar from Estonia who has taken on a fight for the cultural traditions of ethnic minorities within western Siberia. In those lands, native peoples speak languages that are similar to Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian.  Over the years, I acquired books and articles about the languages of the Ostyak, Vogul, and others.  I recognized words that I learned in Hungarian, such as “kutya” for dog. 

• Estonian: 'Elav kala ujub vee all
• Finnish: 'Elävä kala ui veden alla.
• Hungarian: 'Eleven hal úszik a víz alatt.
• English: A live fish is swimming underwater.

"Linguistic roots common to both branches of the traditional Finno-Ugric language tree (Finno-Permic and Ugric) are distant. About 200 words with common roots in all main Finno-Ugric languages have been identified by philologists including 55 about fishing …" 

Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finno-Ugric_languages

“The Dying Fish Swims in the Water” in The Economist here: http://www.economist.com/node/5323735

(Article is about the suppression by the Russian central authorities of native cultures in northwestern Siberia .)

Wikipedia articles

Ural-Altaic Languages

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ural%E2%80%93Altaic_languages

Uralic Languages

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uralic_languages

Finno-Ugric Languages

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finno-Ugric_languages

Mall Hellam “European of the Year” here:

http://oef.org.ee/en/news/article/mall-hellam-is-the-european-of-the-year/

Mall Hellam and Human Rights here:

http://www.humanrightsestonia.ee/en/annualconference/conference-2013/program-2013/mall-hellam/

and here:
http://www.icnl.org/programs/global/gf2011/bios/Hellam.htm

Mall Hellam biography (in Estonian) here:

https://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mall_Hellam

(The Latin words “Information” and “Institute” are easy to spot. The Finns and Estonians must have had some contact with the Czechs in the distant past, and apparently stole all the vowels from the Czech   language and brought them back to the Baltic lands.)

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Sandor Korosi Csoma
What is Literacy?

The Problem of Cultural Patrimony  

Money as Press and Speech 

Libertarians and Racism 

Meteorites

You can own meteorites, the remaining pieces of the early solar system.  They are swept up by the Earth in its orbit, and survive the long fall to Earth's surface.  Some can be identified as coming from Mars, others from Luna.  Some are fragments of comets.  Most are relics of shattered planetoids.

For our ancestors, meteorites were at once harbingers of the gods, and the most ready form of iron.  We know now that some contain amino acids – the building blocks of life – and some of those are not known in native form on Earth. 

The popular beginner's book
by "fallen star" Richard Norton

You can find reputable dealers for buying and selling. If you have the opportunity for travel, you can find your own craters and fall sites and strewn fields. Rarely, but possibly, you can find a meteorite by paying close attention to the ground beneath your feet. Whatever your interest and resources, you can assemble your own museum.

First the Bad News

A New York Times article for April 4, 2011, called them “Black Market Trinkets from Space.”

“…chunks of meteorites, bits of asteroids that have fallen from the sky and are as prized by scientists as they are by collectors. As more meteorites have been discovered in recent years, interest in them has flourished and an illegal sales market has boomed — much to the dismay of the people who want to study them and the countries that consider them national treasures.

“It’s a black market,” said Ralph P. Harvey, a geologist at Case Western Reserve University who directs the federal search for meteorites in Antarctica. “It’s as organized as any drug trade and just as illegal.”

 

Paperback 288 pages
University of Arizona Press, 1997.

The trend is for modern governments such as Turkey, Egypt, and Libya, to sue other modern governments such as the United Kingdom and the Unites States of America, for the return of “cultural patrimony”. 

By comparison, in numismatics, dealers and collectors often find  themselves standing against the interests of museums, especially those operated by governments. The Ancient Coin Collectors’ Guild was formed to lobby Congress, and to sue in courts for the rights of collectors.  And it is not just about coins.  Coins do signal to metal detectors, but they are only the most common artifacts of any Western civilization since 500 BCE.  Where you find coins, you find oil lamps, amphoras, and other ceramic household goods.

Patrimonial claims open many doors. The American Museum of Natural History was sued by a Native American council that claimed that the Willamette Meteorite was sent by the gods to communicate with their people before the arrival of other people on this continent.

New York, New York - June 22, 2000 -- The American Museum of Natural History and the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon today signed a historic agreement that ensures access to the Willamette Meteorite, a world famous scientific specimen at the Museum, by the Grand Ronde for religious, historical, and cultural purposes while maintaining its continued presence at the Museum for scientific and educational purposes. The agreement recognizes the Museum's tradition of displaying and studying the Meteorite for almost a century, while also enabling the Grand Ronde to re-establish its relationship with the Meteorite with an annual ceremonial visit to the Meteorite.  (AMNH Archives here.) 

To my knowledge, no museum curator has spoken up for the numismatists.  However, the New York Times article cited above also included this quote: "We have a co-operative relationship with the collectors," said Monica Grady, a leading meteorite scientist at Britain's Open University. "We can't afford to go out and collect, but this small army of dealers will do it."

In 2012, the federal Bureau of Land Management created three licenses for people who want to hunt for meteorites on federally-held lands. 

•                Casual collection of small quantities without a permit

•                Scientific and educational use by permit under the authority of the Antiquities Act

•                Commercial collection of meteorites through the issuance of land-use permits

(See Space.Com archives here.)

As with any collecting hobby, two axioms inform buyers and sellers alike: 

1. Knowledge is king. 
2. If you don’t know your material, then know your seller.  

Dealers formed the International Meteorite Collectors Association (here). In order to join the club, you must have recommendations from two members.  Their website is not completely clear on what that means, so I emailed an enquiry.  It means that you must have an established buyer-seller relationship with at least two of their members.  

The Meteoritical Society (here) was founded in 1933 by professional and amateur scientists in order to organize the study of meteorites and planets. 

Austin’s Russ Finney created a website to provide information. You can find others online.  Some dealers are members of several societies.  Again looking to numismatics as a reference point, if a dealer is a member of several societies, then that increases their social capital: they have more resources to lose if things go wrong. 

I bought my first meteorite about 20 years ago from an ANA member who advertised them under the “Other Collectibles” heading in the classified ads of The Numismatist. I received two more from a friend who teaches science.  She bought them from a mentor who opened a rocks and minerals store after he retired. 

Personally, I have not done business with any of the firms listed here. I offer them as benchmarks for the size of the hobby network. 

 

http://www.arizonaminerals.com/

http://www.universaltreasures.com/

Aerolite Meteorites

http://www.aerolite.org/ 

(Note that while the site is in the Dot.Org domain, the firm is incorporated as a for-profit enterprise.  The owner, Geoff Notkin, also owns the label as an LLC.  The accounting rules derive from his many activities.

"I am a science writer, meteorite hunter, and photographer, television host and producer, and have had the good fortune to participate in exciting expeditions across much of the world, in search of meteorites and other natural history treasures. I am host the multi award-winning TV adventure series Meteorite Men on the Science Channel and won two Emmys for my work in educational television with STEM Journals. I am a member of The Explorers Club, The International Meteorite Collectors Association, The Association of Applied Paleontological Sciences, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the International Dark-Sky Association, and the Society of Southwestern Writers."

https://www.meteorites-for-sale.com

http://www.meteorite.com

http://www.star-bits.com/index.html

http://outofabluesky.com

http://meteoriteman.com

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

The Problem of Cultural Patrimony

The Drunken Astronomers

Turn Left at Orion

The Perfect Machine: Building the Palomar Telescope

The Problem of Cultural Patrimony

From Agent Presse France 
via Al-Arabiya online here 

On February 18, 2015, news services (Reuters here) reported that a group of amateur undersea divers from Israel found 2000 gold coins from about 1000 CE, off the coast of the ancient city of Caesarea which is now in the modern state called Israel.  The coins were struck during  the Fatimid Caliphate.  Speculation by archaeologists from the Israeli Antiquities Authority included the suggestion that the coins were taxes collected for the ruling center of the time at Cairo in Egypt.  An alternate theory is that the coins came from a private merchant ship moving from port to port.  No article cited the problem of patrimony.

Fatimid dinars feature the names of the caliphs they were minted under, as well as the date and location where they were minted. "They're first-class historical documents," explains Robert Kool, curator of the IAA's Coin Department.  […] A cursory study reveals that the earliest coin from the hoard was minted in Palermo, Sicily, while the majority came from official Fatimid mints in Egypt and other parts of North Africa and date to the reigns of Caliphs al-Hakim (A.D. 996-1021) and his son al-Zahir (A.D. 1021-1036).  -- National Geographic News online here.

UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) has a broad mandate.  In the past fifteen years, it has arranged with national governments around the world – chief among them, the United States of America – for the passage of laws requiring that “cultural patrimony” be returned to the country of origin.  The Boston Museum of Fine Art and the Getty Museum are among the most newsworthy victims. Several problems haunt the laws. The problem of patrimony is multidimensional. The claims of UNESCO and their allies suffer from internal contradictions because they have no objective basis in epistemology: no standard of value exists for identifying right from wrong.

First, modern nations did not exist in ancient times.  The Boston Museum returned to Turkey a statue called “The Weary Herakles” from 200 BCE. But there was no “Turkey” in 200 BCE.   They called it “Helliades” – and you need to understand what that means.

In the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Greeks called themselves “Achaeans.”  About 400 years later, during the Hellenistic Era, they called themselves “Hellenes.”  Hellas is the modern Greek name for Greece.  But grammatically Helliades is much wider than Hellinike. 

Hellenike would be any Greek city with ties to the old homeland.  Tarentum in Italy was Taras; Naples (Napoli) was Neopolis.  Marseilles in France was Marsalla.  Benghazi in Libya was Berenike.  They were Greek cities.  Greeks built them; Greeks inhabited them.  Sicilians are not Italians.  Italy is a peninsula. Sicily is an island. They are different places.  The people of eastern Sicily are Greeks. In the west, they are Carthaginian.

However, after Alexander the Great, many cities of diverse ethnicities came into the Greek sphere. The orator Demosthenes said, “The name ‘Hellene’ no long applies to a race, but to a state of mind.”

 

Ancient Coin Collectors Guild
lobbied for the rights of private citizens

On that basis, should not every coin from Pakistan to Spain, from Egypt to England go back to Athens? In truth, as the laws are applied, coins from Greek cities of Sicily do not go back to the government museums of Greece: they go to the government museums of Italy. 

Consider the Roman Empire.  In addition to the central mint, coins were struck in what are today Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, France, and England.   Moreover, Roman legions came from all across the empire, but could be stationed anywhere.  The legion name (cognomen) could reflect where they were drawn from or where they won a battle.  We have epigraphic evidence to show that Legio IX Hispanica served in England from 65 to 120 CE. Legio III Cyrenica (modern Libya) served in what are today Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. Legio III Italica was stationed in what is Regensburg for 200 years, from 165 CE.  Galba reorganized former marines into Legio I Adiutrix (“Rescuer”) in 68 AD, and stationed them in what is today Mainz.  However, for most of the second century (106 to 198) their base was in a town later known for many years as Szőny in Hungary, but which is now called Komárom on the border with the Slovak Republic.  So, when a hoard of coins found in England contains the product of a mint from Croatia to pay Roman troops from Spain, whose patrimony is it?

Second, the assumption of UNESCO and the co-operating national governments is that the national public museums have a moral right to first claim.  Private collectors are rebuked as looters of protected sites. 

Old World traditions acknowledge the ruler as the owner of all property. The king could grant a title and land to go with it because all of his realm was his to dispose of as he saw fit.  In America today, that continues as eminent domain: the state can take what it needs.  So, when a farmer in Egypt or England finds an ancient coin on his land, it is not his at all: it belongs to the national government.  (England relaxed its “treasure trove” laws; but even that granting of latitude was from the rulers down to their subjects.) The governments of Turkey, Greece, Italy claim that these artifacts were "looted" from "historic sites" but it is easy to make any place historic if other people ever lived there before you did.  Historicity is just an excuse.  In their minds, private property does not exist.

“I’ve been reading only about the Italians and Greeks 

and how they’ve succeeded,’’ said [former Turkish 

cultural official Engin] Ozgen.  “This will show the world 

that the Turks are not ignorant anymore, that they will fight 

for their past and their heritage.’’ This statue is attributed 
as a Roman copy of a lost Greek work.  
It comes from the city of Antalya in modern Turkey.
The town was founded by Attalus II of Pergamon in 180 BCE. 

 Seljuk Turks entered the area about 1500 years later. 

The Boston Museum of Fine Art returned this 
statue of "The Weary Herakles" to the city of Antalya. 

Read here.

Third, why is a museum in Rome more entitled to these artifacts than I am?  It is my patrimony as well.  And, like most Americans, I have a lot of patrimony.  In addition to the Sicilians (Greeks), my mother’s side of the family was loosely identified as “Hungarian.” However, my maternal grandmother’s maiden name was Croatian.  The family just moved up the river inside of a large, multi-ethnic empire in central Europe.  My maternal grandfather’s immigration records identify him as German-Hungarian.  Are not the artifacts of the legions also my cultural inheritance?

Fourth and more to the point, I cite Demosthenes above: “Hellene” is a state of mind.  UNESCO and the national governments couch their claims in the language of race, ethnicity, and genetics.  The fact of the matter is that we are creatures of intellect living in a planetary society.  Seiji Ozawa (Japanese; born in China) and Yo-Yo Ma (Chinese; born in Paris) have as much right to buy Beethoven’s belt buckle as do any of the current inhabitants of Bonn.  

Fifth, national borders are fluid.  Economist Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) and his brother, mathematician Richard von Mises (1883-1953), were born in a town called Lemberg in the Austro-Hungarian empire.  Treaty of Versailles put the town in the Ukraine, where today it is called L’viv.  According to the UNESCO theory of culture, the people there lost their patrimonic right to enjoy the artifacts of one milieu, but were given the consolation prize of another matrix of icons and exemplars. 

Coin of Sinope in modern Turkey, struck about 375 BCE 


when Diogenes the Cynic was mint master.  


Accused of debasing the coinage, he moved to Athens 

and became a philosopher. 

Under the eagle's wing DIO below the dolphin, SINO. 

The test cut shows that the coin was suspected 
of being false.

The ANA measured the specific gravity and found it 

to be only 
90% pure silver, acceptable to us, 


but debased to the ancients.

Ultimately, the ideological nationalization of museums contradicts the fundamental intention of a museum.  Every leading institution seeks to own and display as broad a collection as possible. That motivation derives from the liberal Enlightenment theory of humanity.  Growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, I benefited from time spent at the Cleveland Museum of Art. It seemed to me then – and is still supportable today – that the entirety of human culture was housed there. 

A hundred yards away, the Natural Science Museum displayed meteorites and dinosaur fossils.  Those, too, are arguably someone else’s patrimony. One of the displays about Humans was a panel explaining Culture. I do not know if the Jivaro would be culturally enhanced by the return of their shrunken heads, or if the Inuit need another old canoe; but I certainly am better for having studied them without trekking to Peru and Alaska.

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS

Circumference

Numismatics: History as Market

Newton versus the Counterfeiter

Accounting for Civilization