Hungarian New Year's 1963 Stamps

Hungarian New Year stamps from 1963.

To commemorate the New Year in 1963, the Hungarian Post issued a very interesting set of stamps: A special New Year's semi-postal featuring New Year's revellers, various plants and decorations. Also featured prominently on these stamps are New Year's greetings in four different languages (English, French, German, and Russian). While most foreigners are unfamiliar with the imagery in these stamps, these are some very ancient New Year's customs practiced by most Hungarians.

In most of the stamps in this set, four-leaf clovers and horseshoes are featured prominently on their faces. In Hungarian culture, the four-leaf culture resembles the Cross and is considered a powerful good-luck charm that can also ward off evil. Since horses have been a part of Hungarian culture for centuries and are considered to be creatures with great magical powers (as well as iron, which in itself is regarded as a "lucky metal"), the horseshoe is also considered a good luck charm. It's only natural that the artist chose to include these traditional Hungarian good-luck symbols in this stamp series!

In the middle stamp above, we can see a child dressed in a black outfit and carrying a long wire brush over his shoulder. This child is a chimney sweep. In many of the central and eastern European countries - including Hungary - running into a chimney sweep on New Year's Day is considered a very auspicious omen. As a matter of fact, in olden times, people in Hungary would run out into the streets of their city and village and touch the buttons of the chimney sweep for good luck as he went by on his bicycle on New Year's Day! This stamp commemorates that tradition very well....and makes those of us outside of Hungary very curious about this tradition, as well as all the others depicted in these stamps!

All in all there are a total of eight stamps in this set ranging from 20 to 2,50 forints.

This is certainly one of the most unique stamp sets to be issued by the Hungarian Post, and one filled with plenty of traditional Hungarian symbolism, culture, and lore!

For more about Hungarian New Year's traditions, check out the sites below:
-http://magyarnews.org/photos/File326.pdf (Article from Magyar News about Hungarian New Year's traditions.)
-http://www.luckymojo.com/chimneysweep.html (Page from the Lucky W Amulet Archive about the tradition of the chimney sweep in Europe.)
-http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1916&dat=19811114&id=f-cgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=L24FAAAAIBAJ&pg=1158,3079801 (Article from Norwalk, CT's newspaper The Hour about Hungarian-American chimney sweeps....and how the chimney sweep has a very important role to play on New Year's Day in Hungary.)