Beautiful certificate from the
New York Produce Exchange Safe Deposit and Storage Company issued in 1937. This historic document was printed by American Banknote Company and has an
ornate border around it with a vignette of a dog and a dog in the company seal. This item has the signatures of the Company's President and Secretary and is over 71 years old.
Certificate Vignette
The New York Produce Exchange had nearly 1900 members.
Besides grain, it dealt in many other products, including hay and straw, cotton seed oil, flour, provisions, lard, seed, petroleum, pig iron, hops, butter and cheese. The Exchange also took an active part in furthering New York's commercial interests and had committees on canals, bills of lading, exports and railroad affairs. The exchanged was liquidated in December 1943.
The article below described the exchange in 1887:
THE FINANCIER COMPANY.
40 BROAD ST., NEW YORK.
1887
NEW YORK PRODUCE EXCHANGE.
The New York Produce Exchange was organized in
the year 1861, and incorporated in 1862.
The new Exchange Building is located on Broadway, ,
Whitehall, Beaver and Stone streets, and is one of the
most complete and imposing structures in New York
City.
It was commenced
May ist, 1881, and completed May ist, 1884. The corner stone was laid June 6th.,
1882. It is built of granite, brick, terra cotta, and iron.
Its dimentions are 300 by 150 feet. The cost of the
land and building was three million dollars. The
Exchange Room is 220 by 144
feet.
The ceiling 47 feet 6 inches high; and under the skylight 60 feet. The girth of the outside walls are nearly one-fifth of
a mile, containing seven and a half acres of floors.
In its construction twelve millions of brick, fifteen
miles of iron girders, one and three quarter miles of
iron columns, and two thousand and sixty-one tons of
terra cotta were used.
It has over two thousand windows and nearly one
thousand doors, seven and one half miles sash cord,
and chains requiring over forty seven tons of sash
weights.
The skylight over the exchange room is one fifth of an
acre in extent. The building is heated by twenty-nine
miles of steam pipes. It has nearly one mile of paneled
wainscoting.
Nine hydraulic elevators carrying an average of
twenty-one thousand five hundred people daily, or six
million five hundred thousand a year: the pumping
capacity for supplying water is sufficient for a city of
one hundred and seventy five thousand people.
There are one hundred and ninety offices, in the building,
rented for one hundred and seventy five thousand
dollars per annum, a premium of over twenty thousand
dollars was paid for the first choice.
The tower clock has a dial twelve feet in diameter,
the hands are six feet in length, the numbers twelve
inches and the weight three-quarters of a ton.
It is two hundred and twenty feet from the sidewalk
to the coping of the tower, and three hundred and six
feet to the top of the flag staff, which is ninety feet long,
and carries a flag fifty by . thirty feet, said to be the
largest ever made.
The horse power used per year for heat and power is
about one million two hundred thousand.