Catalog
10 Dollars New York
| Issuer | Independent Hungarian Government (Kossuth Fund) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1852 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 10 Dollars |
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| Obverse description | The obverse presents a letterpress-printed design on white paper with the central legend "HUNGARIAN FUND" and denomination text in bold typeface at center. To the left, a vignette of allegorical female figures representing Liberty flanks the composition, while the numeral "10" appears at upper left and the Roman numeral "X" at upper right. A portrait vignette of Kossuth Lajos is incorporated into the design, with multiple lines of text referencing the Independent Hungarian Government and the ten-dollar value below the central inscription. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | HUNGARIAN FOUND. INDEPENDENT HUNGARIAN GOVERNMENT TEN DOLLARS |
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| Comments |
Lajos Kossuth arrived in New York in December 1851 to enormous public fanfare, and the fund-raising notes issued in his name the following year were part of a broader campaign to finance a second Hungarian uprising against Habsburg rule. They were never legal tender in any jurisdiction — more political instrument than monetary one — and were sold to American supporters as a kind of patriotic bond, redeemable if, and only if, an independent Hungary was restored. That condition was never met.
The notes were printed in New York, which is also the stated place of payment, making them unusual among exile-government issues in that no fiction of a distant treasury was maintained. Kossuth left the United States in 1852 with considerable funds but no army, and the planned insurrection collapsed without a shot.