Get Different Value Type Out Of Concrete Implementation If Only Interface / Abstract Class Is Known?

I am creating an xlsx reader / writer for my application (based on OpenXML SDK 2.0). I want to read xlsx files and store the data contained in each row in a DTO/PONO. Further I want to read the xlsx file and then modify it and save it.Now my problem is not with the OpenXML SDK, I can do what I need to do.My problem is on how to structure my components. Specifically I have problems with the polymorphism at the lowest level of a Spreadsheet, the cell.A cell in Excel/OpenXML can have different types of data associated with it. Like a Time, Date, Number, Text or Formula. These different type need to be handled differently when read/written from/to a spreadsheet.I decided to have a common interface for all subtypes like TextCell, NumberCell, DateCell etc.Now when I read the cell from the spreadsheet the Method/Factory can decide which type of cell to create.

Now because the cell is an abstract from the real implementation it does not know / does not need to know of what type it is. For writing / modifying the cell I solve this problem by calling .write(ICellWriter) on the cell I want to persist. As the cell itself knows what type of data it contains, it knows which method of ICellWriter it needs to call (static polymorpism).Writing to the xlsx file is no problem. My problem is, how do I get the data out of my cell into my DTO/PONO without resorting to type checking -> If TypeOf variable is ClassX then doesomething End If. As Methods / Properties have to have different Signatures and differentiating by only using a different return type is not allowed.The holder (collection, in this case a row of a table/spreadsheet) of the objects (refering to the cells) does not know the concrete implementations. So for writing a cell I pass it a Cellwriter. This Cellwriter has overloaded methods like Write(num as Integer), Write(text as String), Write(datum as Date). The cell object that gets this passed to it then calls the Write() method with the data type it holds. This works, as no return value is passed back.After some thinking about the problem I came to realize that it's not possible without reflection or knowledge of what type of cell I am expecting. Basically I was trying to recreate a spreadsheet or something with similar functionality and way too abstract/configurable for my needs.