Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, September 6, 1993                   TAG: 9309060079
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: HOLIDAY 
SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle
DATELINE: SAN FRANCISCO                                LENGTH: Medium

YARD-SALE NAMES WORTH $1 MILLION

He saw some trash bags crammed with old papers and, as people do at garage sales, he dug in. He found old photos of movie stars. He found bits of paper with scribbled signatures on them. He found old San Francisco theater programs. And everything was autographed by many of the biggest names in entertainment.

It turns out he had walked into the collection of San Franciscans Francis and Violet Zane, who had obsessively put together more than 100,000 pieces over more than 40 years. It is one of the biggest autograph collections ever.

Kinnes bought the collection for only $100 down. He quit his job, and now he and his wife, Amy, are selling off the hoard. It could be worth more than $1 million.

Francis Zane, originally from Hawaii, worked at the San Francisco Opera House and the Curran Theater. In the days of vaudeville, stage shows at movie houses and an active downtown theater scene, he made it a point to ask every headliner for a signature. And he frequently took their picture, standing in front of the Curran. Later, he had them sign the photo.

"Francis always carried a scrapbook," said Kinnes, who has found out a lot about the Zanes since he stumbled on the collection. "In some pictures, you can see Francis with a shopping bag in each hand." The bags were crammed with albums and photos, just waiting to encounter the right celebrity to get a signature.

And what signatures! Clark Gable, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel & Hardy, Mary Pickford, Vivian Leigh, Carole Lombard, Laurence Olivier, Errol Flynn, Orson Welles, Jack Benny, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong.

There is one binder in which Zane put in a page for each year's Oscar winners, starting with Janet Gaynor and Emil Jannings in 1927. He missed only a few over the years.

One scrap of paper is signed by Noel Coward on one side and Truman Capote on the other.

Violet Zane died in the late 1960s. Francis moved back to Hawaii and died in 1983. Apparently his family never realized the collection's value. The garage sale was at the home of Francis' sister, who wanted to be rid of the stuff.

Kinnes says he offered to be partners with the family, but they wanted cash instead.