After a renaming to honour the US super-popstar Taylor Swift, the German city of Gelsenkirchen has received 1.400 bids for local signs bearing the city’s renaming as “Swiftkirchen”.
Shortly before Taylor Swift arrived in Gelsenkirchen to play three shows of her Eras Tour in mid-July, the German city renamed itself “Swiftkirchen” in her honour. Now back to plain old Gelsenkirchen, the city in North Rhine-Westphalia is auctioning off 20 of its 30 “Swiftkirchen” signs and has received around 1.400 bids from Germany and abroad.
The highest bid came in at 3.000 euros and the 20 highest bidders will soon be notified of their successful purchase via email. So far, it is only known that the winning bid has come from outside of Germany.
While the 20 signs will be shipped off to paying Swifties far and wide, one has been consigned to the cabinets of Bonn’s Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland.
“We treasure all facets of contemporary history,” collection director of the museum Manfred Wichmann told RTL West. “Pop culture has a place alongside politics, economics and social issues. We want to collect artefacts that speak to all generations; in that sense, the phenomenon of Taylor Swift cannot be overlooked today.”
The idea to honour Swift with a city sign was that of 16-year-old Gelsenkirchen citizen and Swift fan, Aleshanee Westhoff, who wrote to Mayor Karin Welge (SPD) to propose the renaming. Gelsenkirchen graphic designer Uwe Gelisch was put to the task of developing the sign, which is already on show in Haus der Geschichte’s permanent collection.
Thumb image credit: (C) Stadt Gelsenkirchen / CC-BY-4