Thrifty finds

Well it was a good week for some great deals :)

I found this cutie for nothing next to the trash. Haven't thought on what I will do with it.

Today I was at a kind of garage sale where somebody sold inherited antiques. These sales are very rare here and usually expensive, but this one was a steal! I will post some better pictures once the items are in place at my house which will be probably next year after we knock a wall :)

First this huge plate rack. It's over a meter (yard) wide and high and in beautiful carved wood. It's antique and I paid 210 shekels for it (55 dollars).

Also at this garage sale,  this lot of items: 4 blue gingham napkins with rings still in the box for 5 shekels (one euro or $1.35). Two sheffield sugarspoons, 2 shekels each (50 cents), another sugarspoon and a dutch laddle also for 2 shekels each (50 cents), a silverplate sugarbowl with blue glass insert for 8 shekels (2 dollars), a tin pitcher for 15 shekels (3.50 dollars), a tin French cup for 15 shekels (3.50 dollar), a cream laced pindish for 6 shekels (1.50 dollars), a cream laced jar with lid for 15 shekels (3.50 dollars), a lovely silverplate cake server for 10 shekels (2.50 dollars) and 4 teaspoons, 2 shekels (50 cents) each. All marked.

Than I got some nice deals at Ebay. About that in another post.

I just wanted to write about one particular item I got on ebay for 1.99 euro only (and 7 euro shipping). It is a book, called Journal 1939 by Menno ter Braak. It is his diary from 1939, published in 1945.
I have a couple of his reprinted books, but I didn't have this one as it is rare. When I was a student Ter Braak made a great impression on me. So much that when I was 16, I rode on my bike all the way from Groningen to Eibergen to search for the house where he was born and lived. :)

Menno ter Braak (1902-1940) was a Dutch writer. He was a follower of Nihilism (Nietsche). 
In 1933 ter Braak, then living in The Hague, joined the Dutch liberal daily Het Vaderland (the Fatherland) as a literary affairs editor and was one of the first Dutchmen to understand the looming threat of Nazism. It is in these years that he started het Comité van Waakzaamheid (the Committee for Vigilance).

Towards the end of his life he became increasingly involved in the growing anti-Fascist movement in the Netherlands. When the Second World War broke out in 1939 he fell into a deep depression. Four days after Nazi Germany had invaded the Netherlands, on May 14, 1940, after a failed attempt to flee to England, Menno ter Braak committed suicide. He died on the day the Luftwaffe carpet bombed his former hometown Rotterdam. No doubt the Germans would have arrested him and possibly executed him, had he not taken his own life.

Have a great weekend! Don't forget to enter my candy!