Shameless Evidence of Foreknowledge

February 7, 1912, New York Times, TAKES CARNEGIE VAULTS.
Mercantile Safe Deposit Company Receives Transfer from the Original Buyers.

In accordance with the plan announced last month in THE TIMES by which the Carnegie Safe Deposit's Company's vaults at 115 Broadway were bought by a group of bankers identified with the Chase National Bank, the Guaranty Trust Company, and the American Exchange National Bank, who later took over the Mercantile Safe Deposit Company from the Bankers' Trust Company, the Mercantile Safe Deposit Company has increased its stock and purchased the Carnegie vaults from the original buyers.

The Mercantile Safe Deposit Company, which was formerly owned by the Equitable Life along with the Mercantile Trust Company, passed to the Bankers' Trust Company when the Equitable Trust Company absorbed the Mercantile Trust. Since the Equitable fire, which burned out the Mercantile Safe Deposit Company, the boxholders have to a large extent transferred their patronage to the Carnegie vaults. The group of bankers who have turned over the Carnegie Company's old vaults to their recently acquired Mercantile Safe Deposit Company purchased the vaults from the State Banking Department, which is liquidating the bankrupt Carnegie Company, for $375,000. The vaults, which were built of armor plate by the Bethlehem Steel Company, originally cost in the neighborhood of $800,000, but until the Equitable fire were a losing investment. Attempts had been made by the State Superintendent of Banking Van Tuyl to sell them to the Guaranty Trust Company, which is building across the street, but engineers found that they were built so that they could not be taken apart and moved.

In reorginizing the Mercantile Safe Deposit Company under the new control the old President of the company, William Giblin, who narrowly escaped death in the fire, has been re-elected, along with former Vice President John B. Russell. Lawrence A. Ramage was elected Treasurer and will have charge at the new location.