2012Europa - Miniature Sheet

Each year PostEurop, the Association of European Postal Operators, offers its members the opportunity of issuing EUROPA stamps on a common topic. The subject for this year’s stamps is ‘visit’. Magyar Posta’s 2012 entry contains two stamp designs, which are the work of the graphic artist Ágnes Rozmann. The main motif is Hungary’s online country code ‘.HU’, which in one stamp is filled with peppers and grapes and in the other contains details of the library of the World Heritage site of the Archabbey of Pannonhalma. The building of the Archabbey is on the left of the selvedge and Lake Balaton can be seen on the right. 100,000 copies of the miniature sheet have been made by offset printing at the banknote printing company Pénzjegynyomda. Since 2003 the most beautiful EUROPA stamp has been chosen by the public. After Monaco, Greece, Iceland, Ukraine and Armenia, Magyar Posta’s new stamps won the coveted title in 2008, 2009 and 2010. In 2011 the organisers altered the rules of the competition and, in addition to the online vote of previous years, a seven-member expert jury also chose the most beautiful stamp. This first professional award was won by Cyprus Postal Services. In 2011 our EUROPA stamp came second in the popular vote.