Philippine 3D (hologram) flora cards- Vanda and Daisies

After the Philippine postcrossing meet-up last 06 July 2013, some postcrossers went to a local bookstore where it was rumored that older postcards were still sold. The trip took longer than expected—a bit more than two hours—because the cards in the store were, indeed retro.

[The Postcrossing forum on Vintage Card RR classify old cards as follows:

     Vintage- cards older than 1960
     Retro- cards between 1960- 1990
     Vintage reprints- modern cards (1991 or newer) that look vintage but are not.]

The bigger surprise was that there were 3D cards still sold at the bookstore! Modern 3D postcards sold in the malls cost about Php 125 each; the price that we got the retro postcards for was a bargain compared to the prevailing market value. There were six 3D card designs left with only a few copies of each of the designs. After a bit of research, I found out that there were more than a dozen 3D card designs originally released by the bookstore; it’s a pity that we were not able to find copies of the other designs.

The first two 3D postcards featured the following designs:

Mokara orchid. The Mokara is an intergeneric hybrid of the Arachnis orchid, Ascocentrum orchid, and the Vanda orchid.

Daisies. Although the back side of the card says that this is a daisy, it does not specify which type of daisy. The name daisy, widely applied to members of the Asteraceae family, characterized by their composite flower type in the form of capitula (clusters of flowers grouped together to form a single flower-like structure) surrounded by involucral bracts (specialized leaves that appear when the plant is in bloom).

Both cards were printed in 1967.