The communist promise plentiful jobs. Hard to do when agriculture was requiring fewer workers to do the same jobs and families were still large. Hungary was now a small country instead of an integral part of a big empire. Maybe that means that there will be an opportunity to add processing jobs in country. Like say aluminum metalworking to take advantage of long standing bauxite mining. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
I like the stamps of authoritarian regimes when they try to show off something that they are doing for the people. My favorite of these was an Albanian stamp I did here, https://the-philatelist.com/2017/11/09/communism-provides-smokes-for-atheists-and-then-a-refugee-camp-for-muslims/ . There are always 2 questions I hope to answer when writing about such a stamp years later. Did the regime really do what they were claiming credit for. Also does the operation still go on, thereby proving that it really was something important. Spoiler Alert; yes and yes.
Todays stamp is issue A202, a 50 Filler stamp issued by Hungary in 1958. This was a 14 stamp issue in various denominations over several years with the later versions like this one shrunken down. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.
Bauxite mining was done in Hungary for many years previous to the Aluminum metalworking plant displayed on the stamp opening. The operations were largely owned by German(Germany) private companies with the processing occurring outside Hungary. This was not going to do after the iron curtain descended. The Inotal metalworking plant opened near Budapest in 1952. It started as just a smelter but later added more precision work involving wires and slugs. Slugs are the cases of small batteries.
In 1995 the management of the plant was able to achieve a management buyout that kept the plant open and got it into private hands. In 2002 the main smelter closed as the firm concentrated on the higher margin precision work. In 2006, management sold out to still Hungarian Inotal PLC. Inotal in 2019 bought out rival Salker. All the modern corporate machinations have no doubt played havoc with the number of employees but I cannot find an account of workforce size over time.
Hungary has paid a price environmentally for the activities involving bauxite and aluminum. In 2010 toxic red sludge leaked into the Danube River.
Well my drink is empty and part of me wants to pour another for a toast for the long lasting plant, I can’t get past that sludge image. Apparently you could see it from space. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.