1974 Mongolian People’s Republic First Postage Stamp 50th Anniversary Table Medal – Sukhbaatar Portrait, Original Issue

Description

Original Item – Only One Available. A rare original 1974 table medal commemorating the 50th anniversary of Mongolia’s first national postage stamp, marking the period 1924–1974. Mongolia’s official postal history records that the People’s Government authorized a national stamp issue by Resolution No. 44 of 23 November 1923, and on 1 July 1924 seven denominations of the celebrated “Eldev-Ochir” design entered circulation, the first postage stamps issued by Mongolia itself. The issue was important far beyond ordinary postal use: the stamps appeared before Mongolia introduced its own national currency and became an early visual expression of the country’s modern sovereignty. Their historical importance has since received international recognition, with the original Eldev-Ochir stamps entered in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Asia-Pacific register in 2024.

The medal is a substantial approximately 60 mm copper-toned table piece with two distinctly Mongolian compositions. One face depicts the mounted revolutionary leader Damdin Sukhbaatar, his right arm raised, above the inscription “Ulaanbaatar 1974.” The imagery closely follows the famous Sukhbaatar equestrian monument erected in central Ulaanbaatar in 1946, one of the defining state symbols of the socialist-era capital. The reverse is devoted directly to the philatelic jubilee: a stylized perforated postage stamp carries “Mongol / 50 / Postage Stamp” with the dates “1924–1974,” surrounded by a broad decorative border. 

For the specialist collector, this medal brings together Mongolian postal history, early state symbolism and the iconography of Sukhbaatar in a single period object. Mongolia also issued a postage stamp in 1974 specifically marking 50 years since its first stamps, confirming that the anniversary formed part of the country’s official philatelic commemorations that year. Large table medals connected with this particular postal jubilee are encountered far less often than the stamps themselves, making this a distinctive original piece for an advanced collection of Mongolian philately, MPR institutional memorabilia, postal history, Sükhbaatar material, or socialist-era table medals.