Enthusiast’s 40,000 Post Cards Deliver a Message on the Joys of Collecting

As Walter Waldau proudly raised the post card up to the neon light on his back porch, the flames in Santa Claus’ lamp began to glow.

The “hold-to-the-light” Christmas card posted in 1909 is a favorite of Waldau’s among his “special” cards, which also include a 1920 postcard from Germany with a toy harmonica and a colorful mechanical card that tells its story with a spinning wheel.

With a collection of 40,000 post cards from Japan and Germany--and points in between--the retired former technical writer from Anaheim says he has been dubbed Mr. Post Card of Orange County.

The robust 72-year-old has accumulated cards over the last 60 years--in albums and file cabinets, not to mention shoe boxes stacked in his bedroom and study. Currently, Waldau is working with the Orange County Historical Society to design a series of cards celebrating Orange County’s centennial next year.

Skills acquired during his 40 years of writing technical manuals and drawing up project proposals for Hughes Aircraft in Fullerton have made him valuable to the society’s post card committee, which is producing a series of 10 original post cards--taken from old family albums and archives and featuring historic events in the county--as part of a project commemorating the county’s 100th year.

Waldau’s familiarity with the printing and publishing process helps him pick pictures that have the right shades and tones to turn out well on a card.

Since his retirement five years ago from Hughes Aircraft, Waldau said most of his days have been spent sorting--”fine-tuning,” he calls it--his collection.

He also has taken several prizes at Southern California’s largest annual postcard show held annually in Pasadena since he found the time to participate beginning in 1985.

“The fun of collecting is putting a story together,” he said by way

of explaining his fascination

with post cards rather than coins or matches.

But the collecting bug that bit him also has him watching out for stamps, miniature mail coaches and trucks from all over the world. “It’s whatever catches your fancy,” he said.

Waldau said he was drawn to some stories because a particular post card intrigued him. A card depicting the burning Cliff House hotel in San Francisco launched him on a research project of the hotel-turned-restaurant that once served as a refuge for victims of the 1906 earthquake.

His interest in particular subjects has led him on other searches, including cards depicting St. Gabriel, the patron saint of stamp collectors and postal workers. Since Gabriel appears in most paintings of the Annunciation, where the angel tells the Virgin Mary that she will give birth to Jesus, Waldau’s post cards and stamps depicting the biblical episode fill an entire album.

Cards from abroad provide a cultural flavor that tickles Waldau.

“This shows the whimsical approach to things that the French have,” he said, waving to a collection of Parisian cards depicting the Eiffel Tower. One shows the landmark upside down, another as an airplane with bright yellow wings and yet another as a bubbly champagne bottle.

Some cards in his collection are quite rare--and valuable.

The hold-to-the-light Santa Claus card, which was created by gluing together two pieces of thin cardboard, one of which is colored, is worth $150 today, he estimated. With a laugh he recalled how his late father once told him he wished he had known his son was going to collect such curious post cards, which faded from popularity before 1920, but which could be bought two for a nickel while his father was growing up.

Asked what his family thinks of his hobby, Waldau quipped: “The first prerequisite for (all) this is a tolerant wife.”

Herbert J. Vida is on vacation