Thousands of pieces of Elvis Presley memorabilia are up for auction after their owner was jailed for funding her passion for the King through larceny.

Excited fans are already studying a catalogue that could raise £500,000.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is putting the collection up for sale next month after confiscating it from Julie Wall, 46, who pleaded guilty to theft and was jailed for three years in 2005.

Working as a cashier for North Kesteven District Council in Lincolnshire, she was in charge of counting the weekly takings from the council’s eight car parks.

She took £10,000 in coins each month. She held back hundreds of pounds from each cash box then exchanged them for notes used in other council operations.

She hid the money in her handbag and simply walked out of the offices in Sleaford. Wall is thought to have stolen £557,327 and 11 pence between January 1996 and July 2005. A confiscation order was later made for £597,000.

Wall, who was said to be “in the grip of an exceptional habit”, used the money to buy thousands of records, DVDs, CDs and signed mementoes.

Most of the collection was just stored in the attic of the home she shared with her parents.

The items she bought include a large collection of “lobby cards” – publicity photo cards for films – magazines, film programmes, Christmas cards, and numerous records and LPs including some rare Japanese pressings.

There are 668 Elvis lots, among them souvenirs such as fridge magnets, mugs and records issued from countries including Israel, Mexico, Malay-sia, Peru and Uruguay.

According to the CPS, which has had the collection valued by a leading Elvis expert, lots that will attract serious collectors include a 1964 Elvis credit card receipt from his Texaco Gas account, an autographed copy of the album A date with Elvis and a limited edition of the first Elvis Presley CD to be released. A rare Japanese EP, an extended version of the standard single vinyl record, of Love Me Tender could fetch £10,000 or more.

Gary Balch, head of the CPS confiscation unit, said yesterday that the profits from the auction would be paid back to the council, which employed Wall for 30 years.

Although Mr Balch was pessimistic that the auction would recoup the council’s losses, Julie Mundy, who runs one of the main Elvis websites in Britain, said: “This is quite a remarkable collection. I would say that collectors will find lots of things of interest.”

She added: “This is causing quite a buzz. There has not been an auction like this in the UK.”

Chris Gill, who runs a shop of Elvis memorablia in London and sold material to Wall, said: “It’s not an extraordinary collection but it’s something someone could get with unlimited funds, which she had. There are some cream pieces but a lot of it is the run of the mill.”

He said: “She was insatiable. She probably did in nine years what most of us collectors spend a lifetime at. I thought she was on a mega allowance.”

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