Jonathan's PHILATELY blog: Prepaid Postal Cards to promote the Wealth of Wonder (WOW) Tourist Campaign [Philippines, 2003]

Postal cards are a special type of postcard. These are cards with an imprinted stamp or indicium signifying the prepayment of postage that are officially issued by a postal entity.

Postal cards are clearly differentiated from regular postcards that are cards prepared by private companies and which, more importantly, do not have prepaid franking. The addition of an adhesive stamp or metered postage is required to mail them.

The Philippines has issued postal cards since the Spanish occupation. Postal cards issued until 1953 featured a card with preprinted postage in the obverse, the design of which follows the design of the stamps issued at that time. The reverse is left blank and may be used for the message.

Sometimes, these postal cards are used as the cover for the first day of issuance of later Philippine stamp issues.

From 1954-1994, the Philippines did not issue postal cards. After four decades without postal cards, the Philippines issued a set of six cards in January 1995. The Philippines has released six more postal card series since then. Cards issued since 1995 feature a pictorial design and a preprinted stamp on the opposite side featuring the same pictorial design.

Featured here are some of the Prepaid Postal Cards issued in 2003 to promote the Wealth of Wonder (WOW) Tourist Campaign. There were eight designs in the set and was sold at Php 15 apiece. The postal card is valid for mailing to any address in the world.

Some of the designs include:

Puerto Princesa Underground River