50 Years of Hortobágy National Park: Collector Coins

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the first national park in Hungary, the National Bank of Hungary (MNB) issues a silver collector coin of HUF 15,000 and its non-ferrous metal version with a face value of HUF 3,000 on the occasion of Earth Day.

The special rectangular commemorative coins are part of a series presenting Hungarian national parks, launched in 2010, which follow the Őrség, Danube-Dráva, Danube-Ipoly, Bükk and Kiskunság National Parks. The Hortobágy National Park collector coins were designed by applied artist Gábor Kereszthury.

Established in 1973, the Hortobágy National Park is the first and most extensive national park in Hungary. Initially the area of the Hortobágy National Park spanned across 52,000 hectares, but as a result of continuous expansion and integration, it has grown to approximately 82,000 hectares. Hungary’s first national park has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999. For more than two thousand years, it has provided visible evidence of traditional pastoral land use and exemplified the harmonious relationship between man and nature. The grasslands, as a cultural landscape shaped by shepherd societies, are unique in their pattern and combination of distinctive landscape features, such as the endless horizon broken by distant shadoofs and the silhouettes of wild and backyard animals.

MNB issues a silver collector coin named ‘Hortobágyi Nemzeti Park’ with a face value of HUF 15,000 and its non-ferrous metal version of HUF 3,000 to honor the national park and the 50th anniversary of its establishment. The primary role of collector coins is to educate and present Hungarian national values, therefore they are not to be used in everyday payments. Their face value serves to preserve the value the coins represent to collectors. The silver and the non-ferrous metal versions have the same design, the only difference being their denominations. The collector coins were designed by applied artist Gábor Kereszthury.

The coins are issued as part of the series presenting Hungary’s national parks, and therefore their themes and topics closely follow those of the previous pieces of the series, which showcase species of flora or fauna, characteristic of the individual national parks on the obverse and a piece of landscape or a view of a building on the reverse. The collector coins ‘Hortobágyi Nemzeti Park’ show two characteristics of the national park, a common crane, which is also a heraldic animal, and the scenery of the Puszta, with a shadoof in the center.

The obverse features a group of wading cranes, one of the most distinctive species in the area. The design is completed by the inscription ‘DARU’. The compulsory design elements are also placed on the obverse: on the left, the inscription ‘MAGYARORSZÁG’ (Hungary), on the right in two lines the denominations ‘15000’ and ‘3000’ at the top as well as the lettering ‘FORINT’, the mint mark ‘BP.’ along with the minting year ‘2023’.