Witschonke, Richard Beyer (1945-2015)

by Hadrien Rambach

Rick Witschonke, after receiving a BA in English from Bowdoin College, earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1972. He then accepted a position with American Management Systems, a technology consulting firm based in Washington, D.C., where he became a vice president and manager of the North American Financial Institutions Practice, with 500 people working under his leadership.

At the age of 15, Rick purchased his first Roman Republican denarius, and his interest intensified upon purchasing Sydenham’s book on “The Coinage of the Roman Republic.” A collector and a scholar, Rick devoted more and more time to numismatics after retiring from business in 2001, volunteering at the American Numismatic Society from 2003 onwards: in 2006 he became co-director of the ANS Summer Seminar and curatorial assistant.

Part of his collection was sold by Classical Numismatic Group, Freeman & Sear and Numismatica Ars Classica, auction Triton III, New York NY, 30 November 1999, and then additional coins in NAC’s auctions 61 (October 2011) and 62 (May 2012).

Bibliography:

• Robert Russo & Alberto De Falco, The RBW collection of Roman Republican coins, Zurich 2013.
• Hadrien Rambach, “Provenance glossary”, in Numismatica Ars Classica, Auction 91: the George W. La Borde collection of Roman aurei – part I, Zurich, 23 May 2016, pp. [67]-[79].
• Hadrien Rambach, “Provenance glossary”, in Numismatica Ars Classica, Auction 99: the George W. La Borde collection of Roman aurei – part II, Zurich, 29 May 2017, pp. 47-63.
• Hadrien Rambach, “Provenance glossary”, in Numismatica Ars Classica, Auction 105: the George W. La Borde collection of Roman aurei – part III, Zurich, 9 May 2018, pp. 82-105.

 

This article was first published in a catalogue of auction house Numismatica Ars Classica.