We Hungarians like to be among the world leaders. Our outstanding scientists, athletes and artists have written their names into history. Since mediocrity is not really our style, we occasionally find ourselves leading some less welcome statistics as well. Inflation is a prime example: Hungary set a record that very few countries have even come close to.
Everyone has heard of the hyperinflation of 1946, but first let us go back a little, because during and after the First World War Hungary also experienced severe inflation: over 12 years prices rose on average 17,000-fold. Inflation naturally affected postal services as well. The earlier fillér-denominated stamps were first replaced by values of 1–2 korona and later by issues with still higher denominations. The highest-denomination Hungarian stamps of this period were the 10,000-korona values of the Crowned Madonna and Icarus series shown here. But that would not yet have put us near the top of the list!
Let us see which countries led the way with the highest-denomination stamp issues. So far, seven countries have managed the remarkable feat of issuing a stamp with a face value of 10 million or more in their own currency. To my great surprise, not a single Latin American country is among them.
5th place – China, Zaire and Zimbabwe
In fifth place on our imaginary ranking are the Chinese Empire and two African states. In China in the final days of the regime, a small parcel-post stamp depicting a bus and denominated at 10 million Chinese dollars was issued on 30 July 1948. Zaire issued the stamps shown here in 1993 at a face value of 10 million zaire, while Zimbabwe issued this little mouse stamp in 2008 for 10 million Zimbabwean dollars. According to some calculations, Zimbabwe’s inflation rate in November 2008 was three times higher than Hungary’s in July 1946, so in that respect we may no longer be the world record holder. Stamp denominations in the African country, however, did not keep pace with the absurd scale of inflation, so Zimbabwe has to settle for fifth place.
4th place – Angola
After a close contest, Angola managed to climb into fourth place with souvenir sheets issued in 1999 at a face value of 12,000,000 Kz, or Angolan kwanza. When I saw these terrifyingly ugly stamps, I forgot that the article was supposed to be about inflation and did not even look up the economic causes of Angola’s inflation. My apologies! The stamps were apparently issued to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Moon landing. The appearance of the Space Shuttle Columbia is already hard to explain, since it first flew 15 years after the Moon landing. Even more puzzling is that the Moon itself does not appear on any of the stamps... But when I saw an African-American Neil Armstrong, that was the final straw; even Netflix could not make that up. (Out of respect, I am also sharing a proper photograph of Neil Armstrong.)
3rd place – Yugoslavia
Now let us return to inflation. Many of us personally remember the bronze medallist: in 1993, in our southern neighbour, the disintegrating and war-torn Yugoslavia , prices spiralled out of control, and at the end of the year a series depicting icons was issued with a face value of 400 million Yugoslav dinars.
2nd place – German Empire
The silver medal goes to the post-First World War German Empire , where the economic crisis destroyed the value of the currency. In November 1923 the Reichspost issued a stamp denominated at 50 billion German marks. The collapse of the German mark also affected the Free City of Danzig, which existed as a partly autonomous city-state between the two world wars and issued its own stamps. Its highest denomination was 500 million marks. (Because the inflation was tied to the same currency, Danzig is not listed separately here; I mention it only as an interesting aside.)
1st place – Hungary
Finally, we come to the leader of the list, Hungary, where hyperinflation began in July 1945 and raged for 13 months, ultimately producing a world record. Inflation approached 41,900 trillion per cent, with prices doubling every 15 hours. The rapid rise in prices was an inevitable consequence of the lost war, an exhausted treasury and inadequate production. One contemporary middle manager recalled the pace vividly: after work he hurried home pushing a wheelbarrow containing his day’s wages, but an hour later his wife could buy only two eggs with it.
It was during this period that Hungary issued the highest-denomination stamp in the history of postage: this tiny dove stamp with a face value of 500 thousand trillion (500,000,000,000,000,000) Hungarian pengő.
It should be noted, however, that the currency was losing value faster than the printing works could operate. The 10, 50 and 500 thousand trillion values of the series effectively entered circulation only as the stamps were ceasing to be valid. The other denominations are also very rare on genuinely postally used covers.
What does a figure of 500 thousand trillion actually mean? Just for illustration, I played with the numbers to make it easier to imagine. Today I can buy a coffee from a cheaper vending machine for a 200-forint coin. If a year from now the same coffee cost 500,000 trillion such coins, a tower made by stacking them would be so high that even light would take almost four days to reach the top (it takes only eight minutes to reach us from the Sun). The tower would weigh 4,500 billion tonnes, equivalent to the mass of 900,000 Great Pyramids of Giza.
