A Passion for Postcards : Hobbies: The technical term is deltiologist. Commonly defined, it’s a person who’s turned on by almost any subject--as long as it appears on something suitable for mailing.

For many Southern Californians, last Sunday was brunch with friends, volleyball at the beach and relaxation.

But for Long Beach resident Raymond Rodgers, the day was a little more complicated. It was time to let go of his collection of Holiday Inn postcards.

Farewell to the cards from the Holiday Inn in downtown Des Moines and Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive. Goodby, Princeton, W.Va. Happy trails, Harrison, Ark.

But don’t feel sorry for Rodgers. Although he had spent seven years building up his stock of Holiday Inn cards, he hoped to trade the collection to a friend, Ed Greene of Torrance, for postcards on his latest passion--covered bridges and Indians.

And Rodgers still has his 1967 card of a Boeing super-guppy modified Stratocruiser airplane--and a stockpile of 50,000 other postcards--to fill the void.

Rodgers, 81, is one of about 35 active members of the Torrance South Bay Post Card Collectors, a group that meets one Sunday each month to trade, buy, sell and mostly appreciate postcards.

Although they acknowledge that their hobby might seem dry to some, club members say they can’t wait for their once-a-month meetings to roll around. As a special attraction, each meeting features a theme, and this week’s was limericks.

“We have some pretty rip-snorting meetings. And we have a hell of a potluck every year,” said Greene, a design engineer, who credits his wife and club president Doris for getting him hooked on the pastime. “I could lecture for hours about the subject.”

Founded in 1985, the Torrance chapter is one of four postcard clubs in the Los Angeles area. Nationwide, deltiologists--people who study postcards--are believed to number more than 20,000.

Animals, spaceships, rocks, presidents, seashells, oil wells, 19th-Century English actors and virtually anything that can be photographed have become prized by collectors. Prices at card shows range from a quarter to a $6,800 all-time high that was recently paid for a 1915 card of the Boston Red Sox baseball team with rookie Babe Ruth standing in the ranks.

“You could never name a subject that is not covered in postcard collecting,” Doris Greene said. “You go to a postcard show now and you look for any subject and you’ll find it indexed on somebody’s table.”

Just what attracts enthusiasts is primarily a combination of art appreciation and nostalgia. Doris Greene, a sketch artist, once couldn’t understand why anyone would want to collect postcards. That was until she saw an Easter card with two little chicks on it.

“I felt like I had just stepped back into a period of time that had just passed us by,” Greene said, recalling Easters past.

The card cost her a quarter about 40 years ago, and even though it could probably fetch $6 today, she insists that she wouldn’t sell it. Greene, whose collection numbers more than 60,000, says her favorite postcard now shows a cat on roller skates at a wedding.

Like many collectors, Sue Haffey, a 44-year-old Rolling Hills Estates resident, relishes the historical snapshots that cards supply.

“I grew up during the ‘50s and things were more fun then. It seemed life was more colorful back then, and not so cutthroat.”

But for many collectors, what is written on the back of a postcard is at least as interesting as what’s pictured on the front.

“Some collectors buy cards because they like to read what’s on the back just like the mailman,” Rodgers said.

Although most of the cards contain the expected greetings from friends, Haffey recalls one postcard that contained a marriage proposal. In the one-way world of postcards though, Haffey never found out if the proposal was accepted.

To those unstamped by postcard fever, the world of deltiologists may seem eccentric. But to Dick Smith of Inglewood, who sold a box of old postcards he had inherited for $248 Sunday, the phenomenon didn’t seem strange at all.

“Some people collect barbed wire,” Smith said.