Related Articles
By Scott Tiffney
On Jan. 30 Magyar Posta, Hungary’s
postal service, celebrated the 50th anniversary of the patenting of the Rubik’s
Cube with the release of a round 1,000-forint stamp available in a numbered
souvenir sheet.
The souvenir sheet and a first-day
cover for the issue were designed by Hungarian graphic artist Attila Andre
Elekes, who has designed more than 35 Hungarian stamps dating back to the 2018
Ingmar Berman 100th birth anniversary issue (Scott 4459).
The souvenir sheet is printed by ANY
Security Printing Company by offset lithography in a quantity of 40,000. A
special foldable version of the sheet that results in a trifold standing
display is also available. Another available item is a folded plastic version
of a Rubick’s Cube with colored squares on each side mimicking the original
toy.
For those of a certain age, the
six-sided puzzle with colored squares in the shape of a cube provided endless
hours of problem-solving fun. The Rubik’s Cube, or Magic Cube as it was
originally called, was invented by Hungarian architect and sculptor Erno Rubik.
In the mid-1970s, Rubik was a teacher
at Budapest’s Academy of Applied Arts and Crafts in the Department of Interior
Design. Although most accounts of the toy’s creation suggest that Rubik built
the cube as a teaching tool to help his students understand three-dimensional
objects, his actual intent was to create a device with moving sectional parts
in an attempt to solve the structural problem of moving those parts
independently without comprising the integrity of the entire mechanism.
At the time, Rubik didn’t realize he
had created an imaginative logic toy until the first time he scrambled the
various sections of the cube and tried to restore them to their original
positions.
On Jan. 30, 1975, Rubik applied for a
patent in Hungary for his “Magic Cube,” receiving the patent later that year on
Dec. 31.
In the years since its creation, the
toy has become an international phenomenon, reaching the height of its
popularity in the 1980s, and is estimated to have entertained more than 1
billion users. Even today worldwide competitions are held in which entrants are
timed in their efforts to unscramble the squares of the device.
The design of the numbered souvenir
sheet features the round stamp showing a scrambled Rubik’s Cube in the center
on a white background. Forming a frame around the stamp on the sheet are
squares and rectangles in the remaining colors of the toy’s moving parts:
yellow, red, blue, green and orange.
The available first-day cover
pictures a Rubik’s Cube to the left underneath the Hungarian official logo for
the 50th anniversary of the toy’s patent. On the right is the souvenir sheet
with the stamp canceled with a black postmark of the anniversary logo.
Ordering information for the Rubick’s
Cube 50th anniversary issue souvenir sheet and FDC is available online at the
Maygar Posta website and the WOPA+ Stamps and
Coins website.
Connect with Linn’s Stamp News:
Sign up for our newsletter
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
