Ethan Wayne had tracked down crates of his father John Wayne’s belongings, but wasn’t sure what he would find when he opened them.

“We had no idea of what was there,” Ethan Wayne said. “We found the Academy Award with a bunch of plastic cups and Kleenexes.”

He will now auction off what was once packed away with trash as treasure. The Academy Award for best actor for the 1969 film “True Grit” won’t be auctioned off, but his father’s Golden Globe for the same movie will be, along with some of the western hero’s scripts, costumes and other possessions.

The auction, run by the Beverly Hills office of Dallas-based Heritage Auctions, will take place at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel on Oct. 3-5.

When John Wayne died in 1979, his belongings were boxed up and sent to storage. In 2003, Ethan Wayne took over John Wayne Enterprises, which licenses the actor’s likeness. A year later, he found the 20 or so wooden crates that had since been moved from Orange County to Gardena.

Ethan Wayne has spent years preserving and cataloging the items, including guns and art – although he had to ditch some 1969 bottles of champagne that were cracked open or spoiled from the heat. He also faced a decision about whether to open a museum with the vast collection or set up an auction.

“Some people would like to see a museum, but the museum thing makes me nervous,” he said.

But he was cheered by the recent Beverly Hills auction of Debbie Reynolds’ collection, which included the iconic Marilyn Monroe subway-grate dress from “The Seven-Year Itch” that sold for $4.6 million – far exceeding presale estimates of around $2 million.

Wayne thinks costumes from his father’s films such as “Sands of Iwo Jima” and “The Green Berets” could fetch large numbers, too.

Newport Beach-based John Wayne Enterprises also runs the John Wayne Cancer Foundation and licenses the actor’s name and likeness on items such as pocket knives, mugs and beef jerky.