I have to share a story with you about what happened today. In the Netherlands, where I live, we celebrate the birthday of our queen today. One of the perks of this day is that there are flea markets everywhere. We hired a booth and sold very well today, we sold for over $ 200.

My husband is a builder. A few years ago he had to rebuild a house, and they had to empty the attick. He was told to throw away everything. It was a lot of old junk, everything had been untouched for 30 years or more. But of course he couldn't throw away the books and one vase. So, this morning we packed them to sell at the flea market. I had 2 dozens of vases of myself to sell plus the attick-vase. But my husband, by accident, checked the bottom of this vase. It was signed... I looked it up on the internet and it seems it is a quite expensive vase, Jugendstill. A good start of the day!

We had a wonderful day at the flea market. The books from the attick found some happy new owners. I know the joy a book can give you, and it is nice to share this, so we didn't ask for high prices.

There was one man rummaging the books and he picked one of the books from the same attick. It was a book about the 50 year jubilee of a certain soccer club in 1957 in the Netherlands. My husband and I had said earlier to each other: if we can't sell this book we will post it to the chairman of this soccer club. So when the man said to me: 'can I buy this'  I replied: 'If it is not sold today we will send it to the chairman of that soccer club'. And the man replied 'I am the chairman. We only knew of two existing copies of this book, and have been looking for a year to find another one, because this year is the 100 year jubilee.' I sold it to him for a dollar. He was very, very happy. .
 

I think your experience is fantastic. Did you do well in sales overall?

Yes, we did very well. The average sale in the Netherlands (yes, they calculated this!) is about 60 dollar, but we sold over 200 dollar. But I must admit, we had a lot to sell. But the best is, of course, to give away items. I saw an aunt of mine and gave her a box with 20 or 30 postcards. About an hour later I heard from another aunt how happy she was the cards! And a little boy walked by, staring at a big orange inflatable crown. So I crowned him Prince, and he bloomed! One lady told me she was a teacher in Amsterdam in a slumb sort of neighbourhood. I gave her a correspondence course (which I failed) for knitting and all sorts of needlework, which had patterns etc, which she will use to teach the girls. An old lady was very happy with a crystal vase for 10 cents. This is getting rich (not in money) and happy by giving things that you don't need yourself anymore!

Another nice aspect is that you see the books that you intended to sell, but at the prospect of selling them, you start reading them again. Yesterday I read a book that I bought 20 years ago. It's written by a Dutch writer called Olaf de Landell. I remembered how happy I got reading those books, so I opened the book, a novel. In it a man is reflecting on water. He thinks that Jesus must have drunk at least 3 liters of water a day (living in the Middle East), for appox. 33 years, which is at least 36.000 liters of water. Every liter of water has billions of molecules. All those billions and billions of molecules went through His body and are now in the watersystem of the world. So everybody in our world must have drunk at least one molecule of this 'holy water'. But also molecules of water drunk by Budha and by a Zulu king, a Chinese farmer or an Peruvian shepperd. So the whole worlds shares this with everybody, and we really are all brother and sisters. That is a notion that makes me humble and quiet!
 

It sounds like you had a good time. I like the crowned King, lol.

What a wonderful day, Eurostretcher. I'm very moved by the story of the soccer club chairman, what a marvelous thing. What a lot of simple joy you spread that day.