MILFORD – The J.C. Devine auction house might be long gone, having disappeared in a cloud of bankruptcy and confusion after the death of its founder 17 months ago, but it lives on in court.

TD Bank has sued Joseph C. Devine’s estate, claiming it’s owed $398,000 from a half-million dollars’ worth of loans Devine took out beginning in 2003.

The case is making a slow way through Hillsborough County Probate Court, complicated by the fact that the corporation went into bankruptcy before Devine died.

It seems unlikely that anything will be available for people around the country who consigned firearms and memorabilia in a March 2010 sale in Nashua, many of whom say they never got their money or their items back.

“There is nothing for the creditors. … There is nothing else to liquidate,” said Victor Dahar, an attorney who served as court-appointed trustee until recently.

Assistant Attorney General David A. Rienzo, of the New Hampshire attorney general’s office, said the same thing last winter, and the situation seems unchanged.

Devine built a successful Milford-based business selling firearms and related military items at consignment auctions, which were held every few months, usually in Nashua. He died in February 2010 at age 72, a few weeks before a long-scheduled auction at the Radisson Hotel Nashua.

Employees of his company went ahead with the sale of hundreds of consigned items. But since then, there has been hot debate – which at one point involved the state attorney general’s office – about what happened to the roughly $200,000 brought in by the sale that drew telephone bidders from around the country, as well as material that was sold or not sold at that auction.

Representatives of Devine’s estate say its assets are a 1998 Lincoln Town Car and some cash, with a total value of $14,000.

The bank’s attorney, Christopher Somma, of Portsmouth, declined to comment on the case and said nobody from the bank would discuss it.

One of Devine’s sons, Joseph J. Devine, is executor of his father’s estate. He didn’t return calls in the past week.

He has said in previous interviews that he had no direct contact with J.C. Devine Inc. for years until stepping in after his father’s death.

A detailed analysis of the case published in February by Maine Antique Digest, which specializes in coverage of firms such as Devine Inc., noted that the loan arrangement with TD Bank gave it the legal authority to first dibs on the company’s cash and properties. That apparently included the 20 South St. building in Milford owned by Devine, which held his office on the second floor. The brick building, a block off the Oval, has since been sold and renovated, and Devine’s former offices are for rent, although the J.C. Devine Inc. sign still hangs on the street, largely obscured.

The estate also is being sued by a former employee, Lucy Laramie, who filed an employment discrimination case with Joseph C. Devine before he died and settled it for $25,000. Laramie is seeking that money.

As part of its story, Maine Antique Digest contacted seven of eight people who consigned firearms or material for the March 2010 sale and who were listed in bankruptcy paperwork as having been paid after the sale. It says none of them received the amount reported in the paperwork and many said they had received nothing at all.

Five Rivers Auctions, a separate firm, was founded by several Devine Inc. employees last year and is operating out of offices in the building next to the former Devine building.

The name Devine is also associated with the unrelated Amoskeag Auction Co., of Manchester, founded 14 year by another of Devine’s sons, Jason Devine. He says he has had no connection with his father’s company since 1996.

David Brooks can be reached at 594-5831 or dbrooks@nashuatelegraph.com.