. . . circa 1940. Pump filler. Solid 18K nib and trim. Beautiful condition. Original owner was killed in WWII.
Reserve price—

Braz hesitated while greed warred with reality, then confidently typed $350.

The fountain pen had been in the pocket of an old Navy jacket, part of a defaulted self-storage locker his stepfather Arn had bought last week down near Jacksonville. The locker had held a bent bicycle frame, a fairly new love seat with matching chairs upholstered in black leatherette, and a pair of tarnished and dented pole lamps. His eyes on the resale value of the furniture, Arn had been high bidder at one twenty-five. Only after he’d paid over the money could they enter the locker and check out what else was there. Usually it wasn’t much. This time, over behind the love seat, where no flashlight could reach, they’d found a boxy WWII vintage suitcase.

The old suitcase was locked, and they’d had to wait till they got back to their current base to open it with Arn’s set of picklocks. Vintage luggage in good condition brought decent money these days, and Arn was careful not to bust the catch.

Inside was pay dirt. A carefully folded American flag and a small gold-fringed banner with a gold star pinned to the middle lay atop the dark blue wool uniform of a Navy noncom.

American flags were always good sellers at Southern flea markets, and authentic uniforms moved briskly, too, around the military bases that dotted the South.

“Know what we got here?” Arn had said. “This must’ve been a kid got killed in the war and his folks just packed everything up when they sent his things home.”

Beneath the uniforms were yellowed letters with certain parts carefully razored out by a wartime censor. No envelopes, to Braz’s disappointment. Old envelopes were what collectors wanted.

But while Arn leafed through the letters, Braz shook out the clothes and surreptitiously felt the pockets. When his fingers discovered the pen, he’d palmed it slicker than an add-up agent working a razzle-dazzle.

Unless it was extremely old or immediately recognizable as valuable, his stepfather never had much patience with anything paper. He preferred hard goods that he could turn over quickly at a decent profit. “A quick dime’s better than a slow dollar,” Arn always said, and he’d tossed the packet of letters Braz’s way, along with a couple of Zane Grey books and a New Testament that had been in the bottom of the suitcase.

A half-dozen tiny black-and-white snapshots slid out of the Bible. Uniformed boys younger then than he was now stood on the deck of a ship, and in the background was another ship with big white numbers on its bow. It would take some detective work, but if he could figure out what ship it was, he could write an ad to put on the Internet auction site that would bring in a few bucks for the pictures. World War Two memorabilia always sold. Let Arn go for the quick dime. He’d take the slow dollar any day.