THEY could so easily have ended up in the bin, thrown out with barely a thought along with empty popcorn boxes and discarded ticket stubs.But a collection of film memorabilia, worth up to £30,000 and accumulated by a cinema worker over 30 years in the business, is about to go under the hammer.

THEY could so easily have ended up in the bin, thrown out with barely a thought along with empty popcorn boxes and discarded ticket stubs.

But a collection of film memorabilia, worth up to £30,000 and accumulated by a cinema worker over 30 years in the business, is about to go under the hammer.

The most striking part of the collection is almost 3,000 film posters, ranging from original 1976-77 Star Wars material to more recent box-office hits such as Lord of the Rings and Fantasia 2000.

The assortment of items was saved from being thrown out by Ken Jarmin, who has worked in a number of cinemas all over the country since 1971.

He originally got a job aged 14 at the ABC in Lowestoft. He also worked at the Odeon in the same town and then took various jobs with other Odeon cinemas in Romford and north London.

In the late 1980s, Mr Jarmin went back to the ABC in Lowestoft, now hosting the Marina Theatre, and worked there until 2001.

During all that time, Mr Jarmin made sure the posters, publicity photographs and trailer-film reels did not find their way into the bin.

“Instead I took them home. I couldn't bear the thought of them being thrown away, it seemed such a waste,” he said.

“I never thought I would end up selling them, it just felt like the right thing to do at the time.”

Mr Jarmin is about to move from his Lowestoft home to Lancashire and no longer has space to keep the collection.

“They weigh a tonne or so and I really couldn't take it all with me, so it is all up for sale,” he added.

Mr Jarmin, now 45, estimated the retail value of the collection could be between £20,000 and £30,000, although he did not know exactly what to expect from the auction at Horners in North Walsham.

Principal auctioneer Nigel Horner-Glister, of Horners, said some individual posters should sell for several hundred pounds each, with others bundled up into lots of 20 or 30 and selling for a few pounds.

“What is unusual about this selection of lots if that there is such a wide range within the collection. It's incredible really and represents many years of collecting by one person,” he added

The antiques and collectibles sale will be held at 10am on May 10 at Horners' Midland Road office. Online catalogues can be viewed and online bids made by logging on to www.horners.co.uk.