#Safecracker October 23

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Action movies often have a scene where a safe needs to be opened. The SAFECRACKER may not always be the star of the movie but the character is sure cool.

This week listening to Episode 750 on This American Life I learned about a man who is a SAFECRACKER.

Dave Mcomie lives outside Portland, Oregon with his wife and kids, edits a magazine called International Safecracker, teaches safecracking classes. He also has authored a book titled “Safecracker: A Chronicle of the Coolest Job in the World”

Prince Nelson Rogers who most of knew as the artist Prince died in April 2016. For the last 30 years of his life he lived in Chanhassen, MN at a place called Paisley Park. This location not only served as his home but his creative sanctuary and production complex. It also had a gigantic vault that apparently only Prince had the combination to. When he died no one could get it opened. That is where Dave Mcomie came to the rescue.

Prince’s Vault

Prince didn’t want anyone else owning his music. He was constantly creating music the majority of it never was released. It was all put on tapes and placed inside his vault at the bottom of Paisley Park. He had in highly organized but he didn’t want it shared until he was ready.

It wasn’t just any vault Prince owned it was an Mosler American Century. From their inception in 1867 to their final days in 2001, the Mosler Safe Company produced some of the finest safes and vaults in the world. They were found in banks, post offices, business center and homes of the wealthy during the 19th and 20th century. This safe was one of the last ones made by the company.

Paisley Park had a full blown bank vault some 20 by 40 feet in dimension. The door was 6.5′ high and the door was almost 4′ wide. The model Prince owned had never been opened by a SAFECRACKER. If you want to see what it looked like click here

Dave Mcomie got the safe opened by drilling. It was precise and tedious observed by about 12 individuals. What was inside was detailed on 60 Minutes back on July 25, 2021 click here to read the transcript of that episode.

The video below is what was found when the SAFECRACKER opened up the vault. Pretty cool stuff.