Some black with old grease.
Some brown with rust.
Some stacked carefully.
Others thrown together.
Several diameters.
Different hole patterns.
Different centers.
Different numbers.
Ethan picked up a second.
C18.
A third.
B7-24.
A fourth had lettering from a company he barely recognized.
Then he understood one thing.
These were not duplicates.
At least not all of them.
A man wearing an auction-company jacket walked past carrying a clipboard.
He saw Ethan kneeling by the crates.
“Don’t waste your morning, kid.”
Ethan looked up.
“What are they?”
“Old planter plates.”
The man kept walking.
Ethan called:
“For what planters?”
The man stopped reluctantly.
“Old ones.”
“That helps.”
The man smiled.
“Whitford kept everything.”
“Some of that stuff probably hasn’t moved since Nixon.”
Ethan looked back into the crate.
“Are they selling?”
“Eventually.”
“What lot?”
“No individual lot.”
“Whole pile goes with scrap at the end.”
Ethan stood.
“How many?”
The man shrugged.
“Eight hundred.”
“Nine.”
“Something like that.”
“How much?”
“For what?”
“All of them.”
The man actually laughed.
“You want nine hundred rusty planter plates?”
“Maybe.”
“Why?”
Ethan looked at the iron disc in his hand.
“I don’t know yet.”
That answer amused the man even more.
He looked toward the scrap dealer waiting near the rear of the building.
“Scrap guy offered one-fifty.”
“He’ll probably get them.”
Ethan swallowed.
“How much would I have to pay?”
The man looked him over.
Sixteen.
Faded coat.
Work boots.
No dealer number hanging from his neck.
“You actually have money?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
Ethan knew enough not to answer that question directly.
“What buys the crates?”
The man thought.
“One-eighty.”
“All of them?”
“Everything in those four crates.”
Ethan’s stomach tightened.
One hundred eighty dollars.
Almost his entire summer savings.
For rusty iron.
He looked down at 197B again.
Then at C18.
Then at the different patterns.
Someone had designed every one of them differently.
That meant the differences mattered.
The question was whether they still mattered to anyone.
A scrap dealer walked over.
He was thick around the middle and wore a canvas coat darkened with years of work.
“You buying my iron?” he asked Ethan.
“Thinking.”
The man looked into the crate.
“Don’t think too hard.”
“That stuff’s worth weight.”
Ethan turned the 197B plate in his hands.
The scrap dealer pointed.
“Cast.”
“Dirty.”
“Pain to load.”