The world’s first “football” stamp was issued in Hungary in 1925. Today, in an age of footballers earning millions of dollars and stadiums springing up everywhere, the inscription on the reverse is almost unimaginable: “100% surcharge devoted to physical education purposes”.
So when someone bought this stamp for 4,000 korona, the postal administration devoted 2,000 korona of the price to supporting sport, including football.
Football has since become one of the favourite subjects of stamp issues, with thousands of football stamps appearing around the world. By 1925 the VII Summer Olympics had already been held, and the first Winter Olympics had taken place a year earlier. The Hungarian 1925 issue consisted of eight denominations and depicted several sports, not only football—some of them appearing on stamps for the first time in the world. You can see which sports they were in the short video!
During the period of validity of the issue, special sports postmarks were also used at several sporting events.
Quantity issued:
116,329 examples; imperforate examples also exist, but their quantity is unknown.
Watermark: printed on unwatermarked paper
Perforation: comb perforation 12
Major errors:
- On the reverse of the 100+100-korona stamp, one letter is missing from the word “célokra”;
- Inverted overprint on the reverse of the 100+100-korona stamp;
- A sheet of the 500+500-korona value also entered circulation without the overprint.
Market price: Fine mint never hinged sets cost around 9,000–12,000 forints, while hinged sets are worth at most about half that amount. Used sets are worth around 4,000 forints, although attractive postmarks from particular events on piece or cover can exceed the value of mint never hinged stamps.