Hungarian Numismatic Society
Hungarian Numismatic Society
The idea of founding a society of experts and laymen interested in the history of money was conceived on 7 May 1901 in the Balaton Café in Budapest, with the participation of Károly Nuber (a coin seller, whose study on the chronology of the denarii of banales attracted attention among scholars at the time), Károly Pákozdy (a paediatrician), Mihály Szemlér, Imre Szivák and Lajos Zimmermann (an attorney at law). They approached collectors and other interested people with a newspaper advertisement, while on the professional side, they won over two officials of the Hungarian National Museum’s Coins and Antiquities, Ödön Gohl (museologist and numismatist) and László Réthy (numismatist, later Director General of the Hungarian National Museum). The statutory meeting of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences was held on 14 May 1901 in the small first-floor meeting room with 17 participants. Numizmatikai Közlöny, the regular journal of the Society was launched in the same year and has been published regularly ever since.
The first friendly meeting was held on 18 December 1902 in a dedicated room of the Hotel István Főherzeg, and due to its success, it became a regular event on the last Thursday of every month. Public reading and lectures were held under the umbrella of the Society for the purpose of education, the first one took place on 5 February 1904.
As of 1903 the Society organised trips as well (1903 Aquincum, 1907 Körmöcbánya, Balassagyarmat, Debrecen, Eger, Miskolc, Nyitra, Pannonhalma, Szeged, Szentendre, Vác, Esztergom, Székesfehérvár, Győr), where they contacted local collectors and visited local public collections.
The Society had permanent headquarters as of 1907. Initially, it leased the apartment located at Budapest 4th district, Kaplony u. 7. II. emelet 13. and moved to the apartment located at Budapest 8th district, Csepreghy u. 4. II. emelet 15. as of 1910. This leased real estate had been offered by József Walla, a founding member of the Society. The headquarters of the Society is still located in this tenement. Members of the Society assembled twice a month since the acquisition of their independent headquarters. From 1917 onwards, the Society had insufficient funds to purchase coal during the years of war, so meetings were held in members’ homes, except during the summer months, and common dinners were discontinued.
The Society took part in the introduction of the new Hungarian currency, the pengő, providing a professional numismatic background. The Society encouraged the issuance of commemorative coins within the framework of the pengő system as of 1929 and participated in the design and evaluation of applications. The Society won a silver cup at the raffle of the Association of Hungarian Fine and Applied Artists in 1934, which was named the memorial cup of the Society. This cup is used every autumn since November 1934 to give a toast to the memory of a deceased member during a banquet dinner. The original cup went missing during World War II, but it was replaced with the one still in use in 1946. The Society suspended its operations due to the threat of air attacks in 1944. It merged with the Hungarian Society of Archaeology and Art History as the Department of Numismatics in 1951 and was given a new name and organisational structure. The new organisation was called the Hungarian Society of Archaeology, Art History and Numismatics, and included the former Hungarian Numismatic Society until 1970. Hungarian Numismatic Society became independent on 20 May 1970. It separated from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1999 and continued to operate as an independent public benefit organisation.