“You separated stacks?”
“No.”
“Then?”
Malik knew.
“My mistake.”
He lost almost $400.
Instead of hiding it, he added an inspection checklist for future purchases.
Separate representative stacks.
Check both sides.
Measure cell wear.
Look for hub enlargement.
Check flatness.
Never assume indoor storage.
Another page in the education.
The business kept growing.
Not explosively.
That was important.
Malik did not become wealthy at twenty.
He did not discover that nine hundred plates were secretly worth hundreds of thousands.
Reality was slower.
The original lot produced perhaps several thousand dollars over years.
More importantly, it taught him how to identify, catalog, price, source, and match obsolete parts.
That system became valuable.
By 1994, Carter Planter Parts maintained several thousand plate and meter components.
Only a portion came from the original auction.
Malik bought inventory from dealership closings.
Retired mechanics.
Farm estates.
Scrap dealers.
Sometimes farmers mailed him boxes.
“Found these in Dad’s barn. You want them?”
He paid fairly when they had value.
If they did not, he said so.
Earl Givens became one of his best sources.
The same scrap dealer who had laughed in 1990 now called before weighing old dealership stock.
One afternoon Earl arrived with a pallet.
“Got circles.”
Malik looked.
“Seed plates.”
“Circles.”
“How much?”
“You tell me.”
Malik inspected.
Most common.
Several good.
Two rare.
One cracked.
“Two hundred twenty-five.”
Earl nodded immediately.
Malik looked suspicious.
“You were going to take less.”
“Probably.”
“How much?”
“Not telling.”
Malik laughed.
Earl pointed toward him.
“Boy, you taught me not to sell answers by the pound.”
That sentence stayed.
Malik’s reputation eventually mattered more than his inventory.
Farmers called because he could often say:
“Yes, I have it.”
Or:
“No, but I know who might.”
Sometimes the second answer made him no money.
He gave another dealer’s number.
Customers remembered.
A parts dealer in Indiana named Frank Lowell began trading with him.
If Malik needed a Deere plate Frank had, Frank shipped it.
If Frank needed an International plate Malik had, Malik returned the favor.
Competition became network.
Because no single obsolete-parts dealer could hold everything.
The machines were too varied.
The history too long.
One customer called from Iowa in 1995.
He needed plates for a planter inherited from his father.
Malik had none.
Frank had none.
Three other dealers had none.
Malik copied the number into the want file.
Six months later, Earl bought a mixed lot at an estate.
Malik saw the number.
He called the Iowa farmer.
The man answered.
“Carter?”
“Yes.”
“You still need plate number 3429?”
Silence.
Then:
“You remembered that?”
“I wrote it down.”
The farmer ordered six.
That was what Malik’s business actually sold.
Not iron.
Memory organized better than human memory could manage.
The index cards remained the heart of it even after Malik computerized inventory.
He entered data into a database.
Manufacturer.
Part number.
Alternate number.
Planter models.
Seed application.
Dimensions.
Condition.