REARDAN, Wash.Sitting on a table at Piper Farm Toys here is a gray recipe-card box with the words wish list written on it; inside are index cards, each of which bears a list of items such as Case/IH STX 440, or Cat skidder, or Peterbilt truck.


Most of the lists are scrawled in a childish hand, but othersabout 20 percentobviously were written by adults.


Piper Farm Toys is that kind of place: The toy tractors, cultivators, combines, trucks, and heavy equipment it sellssome 1,000 different modelsare sought by aficionados both young and old, says Bob Piper, the owner of the business.


Little kids want the toys for playing in the dirt. Twelve-year-olds use them to create farm dioramas. Adults who own their own farms and life-size tractors sometimes come in and buy the newest models in toy sizes because they cant afford the real thing, Piper says. Some customers are collectors who are 80 years old, he says.


Almost everybody has a connection back to a tractor, whether it was their uncle or grandpa or good friend or something, Piper says of his merchandises popularity.


Every flat space in the small shop, at 130 S. Lake St., just off the main drag in this rural town 30 miles west of Spokane, holds a toy.


Pipers carries ride-on pedal tractors, antiques, and scale reproductions of new and old equipment that ranges from 1/8th to 1/87th in size. There are brands to satisfy every loyalty, including John Deere, Caterpillar, Allis-Chalmers, Ford, and Case IH (International Harvester.) Some of Pipers farm toys clearly are meant for very small kids, with cartoonish eyes and rounded edges, but most are sturdy, die-cast models with lots of detail. Prices in the shop range from $6 for a small truck to nearly $200 for a pedal tractor thats big enough for a child to ride.


The big thing this Christmas at Pipers Farm Toys?


Piper points to a display of Allis-Chalmers R72 Gleanersthe biggest combine a farmer can buyand notes that its life-size counterpart can hold 300 bushels of wheat or barley in the grain tank.


At home on a farm


Piper estimates that about two-thirds of his customers are farmers or came from farm families, a group he can count himself among.


Hes lived in Reardan since he was 4 years old, and during that time, Ive been a little bit of everything, he says. Besides having been a farmer, Piper, 57, says he has worked as Reardans postmaster, operated service stations, and sold insurance.


Hes been confined to a wheelchair since 1986, due to a spinal cord disorder called syringomyelia, which hes had nearly all his life.


Now, his son runs the family farm, which has been in his wifes family since 1925, he says.


Piper got into the farm-toy business five years ago when he bought the duplicate models and other extras owned by a serious farm-toy collector in Spokane, he says.


At the time, Piper was looking at that purchase more as a hobby, but it kind of turned into a business, he says. Hes the shops only employee, although hes helped out occasionally by other family members.


Since then, Piper has been exposed to the vibrant world of farm-toy collecting, with its own magazines, trade shows, price guides, and speculators. He buys his inventory from heavy-equipment dealerswho, in some cases, have exclusive rights to sell such toysover the Internet, and from other collectors, he says. He adds that he had no idea there were so many collectors locally.


Pipers customers, however, arent confined to the greater Spokane area.


Once they find out that Im here and what kind of toys Ive got, they come from all over the Pacific Northwest, he says.


Some of those people visit the storewhich right now is open Wednesday through Saturday afternoonswhile others get his name and phone number from Piper Farm Toys Web site and call him looking for specific items, he says. The Web site, www.piperfarmtoys.com, which Piper launched about two and a half years ago, currently is responsible for about 10 percent of his business, he says.


Piper Farm Toys also presents a booth at the Spokane Ag Expo farm-products trade show every year and sells toys to attendees there.


With about 400 items sold there, its his biggest single sales event of the year, he says.


Each year he selects one toy as his featured item and at the next Ag Expo in January that toy will be an Allis-Chalmers 440 four-wheel-drive tractor.


Piper says the business doesnt sell enough toys to turn a significant profitits more of a hobby figure, he says of the stores bottom line, although he adds that the operation keeps him plenty busy.


Thats OK with Piper, though. He likes helping collectors find a sought-after item or watching items get checked off of the file cards in the wish-list box.


Says Piper, I deal with a lot of really good people.