25 Stamp seals

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Hungary, 19th century

brass and pewter originals, plaster and wax impressions

Gift of Mór Spitzer, 1912

The Jewish Museum has strived to collect stamp seals of Jewish congregations as well as of individuals.  Seal inscriptions, the use and the owners of the seals may have considerable importance as historic resources, and the depictions provide some insight into Jewish iconography. Mór Spitzer Mór donated several items of this respectable seal and coin collection to the Museum at the time of its foundation.  Bernát Mandl (1852–1940) wrote a review in Múlt és Jövő (Past and Present) on the items in  1915.Of the five stamp seals donated by Mór Spitzer only one item has survived. But because as early as the 1920s’ wax and plaster impressions were taken of them, we can learn of these misplaced, early pieces of the collection.