RICHARD MARGOLIS

MARGOLIS--Richard,

a native New Yorker and eminent numismatist who lived in New Jersey for many years, died on November 24. He was 87 years old. He was born on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on April 21, 1931 to Benjamin Margolis, a manufacturer of women's coats and suits and Norma (Germain) Margolis, a housewife. He leaves behind his adored wife Sara, their beloved cockapoo Cookie, his sister Maxine Margolis, brother-in-law Jerald Milanich, and nieces Nara Milanich, Nina Shea, and Sally Roberts. A graduate of the Horace Mann School, he attended Tulane University and graduated from New York University. Richard was a principal of the N. T. Hegeman Company, a Paramus, New Jersey commercial real estate firm, founded by his maternal grandfather in 1910. Richard caught the coin collecting bug from a friend at the age of twelve and the resulting fever raged unabated ever since. In 1952 he became interested in the numismatics of the French Revolution and Napoleon, building a collection during the next sixty-two years numbering some 3000 pieces, along with the relevant literature. He has published more than thirty articles on this specialty. In 1973 he published The Silver Crowns of France, 1641-1973 which remains a work regularly consulted by specialists in this series. A second collection, begun years later, consists of medal and medallions of the late 18th Century, a period which includes medallic works by Jean-Baptiste Nini and Jean Martin Renaud. His magnum opus, Benjamin Franklin in Terra Cotta: Portrait Medallions by Jean-Baptiste Nini at the Chateau of Chaumont was published in 2015. In a review in the Journal of Early American Literature, the volume was called "the most original, scholarly treatment... of this complex subject." The reviewer wrote that the work "will likely stand for the next several hundred years as the definitive study of the masterworks of the Nini pottery at Chateau-sur-Loire. The volume is just an amazing achievement." Richard, who became a professional coin dealer in 1958, specialized in foreign numismatics of the period from about 1500 to 1960. He carried out extensive research in the Boulton Papers at the Birmingham Reference Library (England), resulting in articles on Matthew Boulton and the Soho Mint in The British Numismatic Journal, the Colonial Newsletter, Spink's Numismatic Circular, and other publications. Richard and his wife Sara were two of the founders in 1972, and subsequently the organizers for many years, of the New York International Numismatic Convention, an annual gathering of important numismatists which continues to this day.