The famous love locks are available for sale this Saturday, in an auction with the main purpose of raising 150,000 – 200,000 Euros for refugees’ charity
“This is the first-ever auction of love locks in the world. The city hopes to raise between 150,000 euros ($163,000) and 200,000 euros from the sale. Proceeds will go to charities helping refugees.”,” auctioneer Olivier Collin du Bocage said in a phone interview.
The tradition of the love-lock trend started around a decade ago, and the reason behind is still unclear. However, the trend went outside the borders and extended to the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, the Great Wall of China, near the Millennium Bridge in London, and even on Stockholm’s Bridge.
Paris has been known for this tradition, as couples often traveled with the main purpose of clamping their love lock. After a long period of such tradition, the Pont des Arts bridge soon remained with no available space, so tourists went on and found other Parisian bridges to hang their love to. However, Paris’ residents started to disapprove this tradition, so the city decided to at least to some good with it.
The charity auction is going to be conducted by the Credit Municipal de Paris, which is a local government-managed bank. It offers funding help to disadvantaged Parisians. The money from the auction is going to the non-profit organizations Emmaus, the Salvation Army, and Solipam. They are going to use the money in order to help the refugees, as Paris struggles with the influx of migrants from poor countries in Africa and the Middle East.
The locks are going to be displayed until 3 p.m. on May 13th, with the possibility of online bidding.
“Already from our online site, we can see that the auction is attracting much attention, notably from abroad. This bodes well for the sale. The foreigners most interested are Americans, a very romantic lot, followed by Italians, Brits, Russians and Chinese.” Theo Recoules, an adviser in charge of the auction, said in a phone interview
All the locks are displayed in a catalog, and the prices range from 200 to 8,000 Euros for the larger ones.
