RICHARD HARTZOG (1947-2017)

Richard A. Hartzog died November 11, 2017 of Metastatic Bladder Cancer.

Born November 4, 1947 in Chicago and raised in Wheaton, IL. Hartzog moved to Rockford after attending the University of Wisconsin at Platteville. Predeceased by his parents Walter B. Hartzog and Virginia J. Hartzog, his sister Terri L. Hartzog and his Lady June Shigley. He is survived by his brother Jeffrey L. Hartzog the World Traveler, Sister Nancy J. White of Colorado, daughter Jennifer Hartzog of South Beloit, nephew Tyler White of Kansas City, and his inherited daughters: Karen (Tim) McCaugheny of Lombard, Jennifer Kross of Peachtree City GA and Kerryanne Shigley of Loves Park.

Hartzog was a collector and dealer specializing in tokens, medals and other small collectibles including 19th century Illinois Exonumia. He issued numerous auction catalogs and sold at shows and on-line over the course of 45+ years of business. Under the name World Exonumia Press he published several books of his own and others. Hartzog was president of the Chicago Coin Club 1979 to 1982. He has served on the board of governors for the CSNS, CWTS, TAMS, Illinois Numismatic Association and others.

Interment will be at the Montrose Cemetery in Chicago.

This is very sad news. I last spoke to Rich at the Denver ANA convention this year, and he seemed fine. He was still buying; I sold him some tokens I had bought on the way out to Colorado. He said that he wanted to order copies of Forgotten Colorado Silver for stock, and I later verified with the publisher that he did.

I first met Rich in the late 1960s or early 1970s at a downstate coin show, maybe in Champaign. He was then buying Civil War tokens, and my friend at the time Larry Camp asked my advice on a piece he wanted to sell to Rich. Rich later did business as World Exonumia, running a number of auctions of tokens, including the finest set of Wisconsin Civil War tokens (at the time) and rare Indian Peace Medals. I bought a number of items from him over the years, at auctions and shows.

Rich also published Ore Vacketta's catalog of Illinois Trade Tokens and Gregory Brunk's catalogs of counterstamped coins. He specialized in stocking books on exonumia; I bought several from him. He is perhaps best known for bailing out the Token and Medal Society by taking the unsold remainders (thousands!) of Bob Julian's Medals of the United States Mint: The First Century, 1792-1892 (1977), and selling them over the years; he told me in Denver that his stock was finally almost exhausted.

His entry in Pete Smith's American Numismatic Biographies is as follows:

To read a Coin World article on Rich, see:
Exonumia dealer Rich Hartzog dead at age 70 (https://www.coinworld.com/news/us-coins/2017/12/exonumia-dealer-rich-hartzog-dead-at-70.all.html)

To visit Rich's web site, see:
http://www.exonumia.com/

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web