Casting number matched.
Harold picked it up.
He looked at Malik.
“Where'd you find this?”
“Whitford auction.”
“That closing sale?”
“Yes.”
Harold turned the plate over.
“You got more?”
“Two of this number.”
“No.”
He looked toward the shelves.
“I mean more plates.”
“About nine hundred originally.”
Harold stared.
Bell corrected.
“Closer to eight hundred eighty after cracks and junk.”
Malik nodded.
Harold looked impressed.
“How much?”
Malik had not prepared for this question.
He looked toward Bell.
Bell deliberately looked away.
Malik understood.
His inventory.
His price.
“What would a new plate have cost if they still made it?”
Harold shrugged.
“Five, ten dollars maybe.”
Malik thought.
This was obsolete.
Useful.
Not irreplaceable perhaps, but Harold had already called three dealers.
“Fifteen.”
Harold reached for his wallet immediately.
Malik wondered if he had priced it too low.
Then Harold handed him fifteen dollars.
“Worth every penny.”
Malik gave him a handwritten receipt.
Harold walked outside with the plate.
Bell waited until the truck left.
Then looked at Malik.
“How's it feel?”
“Good.”
“You make money?”
Malik calculated.
Nine hundred plates for $180 meant an average purchase cost of twenty cents each, ignoring labor.
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Fourteen eighty before time.”
Bell smiled.
“Don't forget time.”
Malik nodded.
He opened the cash drawer section Bell had allowed him to use.
Placed the fifteen dollars inside an envelope.
On the front, he wrote:
SEED PLATES.
First sale: H. Voss. $15.
Harold's purchase changed everything, though not immediately.
At first, nothing happened for five days.
Then a farmer called.
“Bell's?”
“Yes.”
“This the place with old planter plates?”
Bell looked across the office toward Malik.
“Depends what number.”
The farmer gave one.
Malik checked.
No match.
He wrote the request down anyway.
Three days later, another call.
“You got anything for a 197B?”
Malik asked, “Manufacturer?”
The farmer laughed.
“You really are a kid.”
Malik waited.
The farmer gave more information.
Malik found two possible plates.
A week later, a man drove forty miles and bought one.
Then Harold mentioned Malik at Wilson Feed.
Someone repeated the story to a neighbor.
The neighbor had a brother who repaired planters in another county.
By December, the questions changed.
At first:
“You got old seed plates?”
Later:
“You got number 3126-B?”
“Looking for an IH corn plate, twenty-four cell.”
“Need something for an old McCormick planter.”
“Got plates for Cole?”
Specific requests.
That was the moment Malik understood he no longer had a pile.
He had inventory.
He reorganized the entire catalog over Christmas break.
Manufacturer first.
Planter model second.
Casting number third.
Crop type.