Hungary Police Uniforms in the HUPR

[Gordon Craig]

The collar and the shoulder.

Edited March 3, 2008 by Gordon Craig

[Gordon Craig]

The national colours arm band.

Edited March 5, 2008 by Gordon Craig

[Zsolt]

The national colours arm band.

Gordon, this is an italian armband ??

Edited March 4, 2008 by Zsolt

[Gordon Craig]

Zsolt,

Dumb mistake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't see how I could have done that. Sunday wasn't my best day!. I will correct it.

Gordon

Edited March 5, 2008 by Gordon Craig

[hunyadi]

"Piros, Feher, Zold, it a Magyar Fold!" - "red, white, green, this is Hungairan land!" - you got it right Gordon...

[Gordon Craig]

Charles,

That is after I reversed the armband and reposted the picutres. I should be shot for stupdity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Regards,

Gordon

[Hauptmann]

Hi Gordon,

A beautiful uniform! And so lucky to have both types of pants as well! It's a terrific set! Again you are a very lucky man!

Congratulations my friend!

Dan

[Gordon Craig]

Dan,

Yes I was lucky with this set. Other collectors had passed it by because it has some fair sized moth holes at the bottom on the back of the tunic but having only seen tow tunics in a year and a half and the chance to get both pairs of pants at the same time, plus what I will post next, sold me on the deal.

Regards,

Gordon

[Hauptmann]

Dan,

Yes I was lucky with this set. Other collectors had passed it by because it has some fair sized moth holes at the bottom on the back of the tunic but having only seen tow tunics in a year and a half and the chance to get both pairs of pants at the same time, plus what I will post next, sold me on the deal.

Regards,

Gordon

Well I sincerely think you made the right decision. I've seen things that are extremely rare with such flaws and due to the rarety they're still grabbed up and treasured. Plus, in your hands the damage can now be kept from getting any worse. Cared for properly it will now last for the generations to come.

Again a terrific set!

Dan

[Gordon Craig]

Acquired at the same time as the blue Rakosi era police uniform was a 4/4 coat from the same period. Luckily, this coat still has the collar tabs attached and is only missing the collar tabs. This coat is in excellent condition and I never expected to find a coat of this age looking this good.

Regards,

Gordon

Edited March 8, 2008 by Gordon Craig

[Gordon Craig]

A close up of the collar tabs.

[Gordon Craig]

The collar tabs and the loops for the shoulderboards.

[Gordon Craig]

The front closure buttons. It is now a couple of days since I started this particular post. I have been wrestling with my photo program and my ISP over the weekend. I have resolved part of the photo problem but I am still fighting the ISP problem. So, if you find dome inclomplete posts over the next couple of days please bear with me and I'll sort things out eventually. The 4/4 coat buttons are 26mm in diametre while the tunic buttons are only 22mm in diametre.

Edited March 10, 2008 by Gordon Craig

[Gordon Craig]

There is a slit up the back, from the bottom hem, of the coat which is closed by small gold buottons of the same design as those on the other parts of the coat. There is also a waist band with two buttons on the back of the coat.

[Gordon Craig]

Thanks to Charles, I can now add pictures of the correct Rkosi era police shoulder boards to this thread. The boards will eventually be put on the great coat as the tunic, set up now as it would have been worn by person suppporting the revolution in 1956, would not have had shoulder boards. Hungary does not make a shoulder board of a larger size specifically for great coats. Hungarian shoulder boards are made in three or for different sizes (I'll have to check for the correct number here.) and used according to the size of the tunic. The larger sizes would probably be used on the great coats.

During this time period, shoulder boards were made with the button sewn onto the top of the board before the material on the bottom was applied. The material on the bottom of the board has a small plastic button on the neck end and a small thread loop on the neck end of the tongue. The tongue is passed through the two loops on the coat and the single loop on the bottom of the board before the loop on the tongue is placed over the small plastic button. This arrangement holds the shoulder board firmly in place but makes it relatively easy to remove.

Regards,

Gordon

Edited June 26, 2008 by Gordon Craig

[Gordon Craig]

The bottom of the boards. One board has the button missing and the other the loop on the end of the tongue. Soon to be repaired.

[hunyadi]

Hungary does not make a shoulder board of a larger size specifically for great coats. Hungarian shoulder boards are made in three or for different sizes (I'll have to check for the correct number here.) and used according to the size of the tunic. The larger sizes would probably be used on the great coats.

Hi Gordon - Check with your other hard baord about this - I know the regulations state this - but I have yet to find another board that was larger than the others - I think they had that as an idea at first - but it was dropped for production purposes. (this happened alot - the regs even said that collar tab devicese were to be gold for officers and silver for NCO's but this never happened until after 1957) All the boards in my collection are the same size as I recall - I had a hard time beleving this when I read the regulations - so I checked...

The only true difference was the use of a cloth or "bullion wire" (its shiny???) field - on this NCO board it is the yellow cloth type which was intended to be used for everyday use - the bullion wire was to be used for parade.

[Gordon Craig]

Charles,

I have three different sized boards (length) from the Kadar era and I thought that the regulations were the same during the Rakosi era. I guess that I was wrong. Good information to have.

Regards,

Gordon

[hunyadi]

Yes - the Kadar era they had to manipulate the size of the boards as they were the sewn in type - cant have a "large braod shouldered" general with stubby boards. The Rakosi boards (1949-1956) for generals were of a different size as the general staff was always a little on the portly side. They also used Soviet six sided baords - even though the regulations called for a five sided board.

[Peter Orincsay]

Looking at the drawing of the Osprey Elite series "The Hungarian Revolution 1956?, it looks to me more like the uniform of the AVH. The secret state police worked in different forms and used conscripts as well for some guard duties amongst other. This was the case in 1956 when the fight over the Hungarian communist party headquarters stood. The photographer John Sadovy from LIFE magazine was present at the time and he captured this famous series of pictures.

The uniform is clearly the one pictured on Gordon?s picture of his tunic.

Photographer John Sadovys photos was later used for the death sentence of the 23 year old Galg?czi Zolt?n.

More of that can be read at http://www.eorsilaszlo.hu/el/galgoczi.html (Hungarian)

[Peter Orincsay]

Pic 2.

[Peter Orincsay]

Only one of the pictured soldiers was killed at this point. The person who?s head is visible second, from the left. The others were wounded but recovered later.

[Peter Orincsay]

My father recalled encountering the officer seen here to the left (Somogyi Lajos), years later while working at ministry of internal affairs changing curtains.

[Peter Orincsay]

Pic 5.

[Peter Orincsay]

Last one.