I have been working as a professional numismatist for nearly eight years now, starting out as a dealer in a small coin shop in my hometown of Montreal, Quebec. I worked there buying,selling, and appraising coins for four years while pursuing my studies.

In 2014, I completed an internship as a United States coin cataloguer for Heritage Auctions in Dallas, Texas. My job was to learn how to evaluate, research, and write about some of the mostimportant (read: expensive) U.S. coins.

At the end of my stage, my boss asked if I would stay on in my role as a cataloguer while working remotely from home. So, I have spent the past three years working with some of the foremostexperts for the third-largest auction house in the world, and the largest dealer in rare coins.

In addition to my work for Heritage, I continue to trade in coins and paper money, setting up and local and national coins shows, and helping individuals and families appraise and liquidate theirholdings.

Finally, I am a member of various professional organizations, including the Royal Canadian Numismatic Society, American Numismatic Association, and Montreal Numismatic Society.

Now that we have gotten that out of the way, let me outline what I hope to achieve with this column. First and foremost, I hope to help you, the reader, learn more about collecting coins. In myexperience, most people also have some cache of coins they want to learn more about - whether it be their history or value.

Future articles will tackle a variety of subjects like what makes a coin valuable, the importance of condition, coins as investments, and cleaning your coins (hint: don't).

What excites me most about this new column is the opportunity to take your questions. Every week, I hope to answer one or two inquiries. Readers can send questions and comments to my email addressj.lipson@hotmail.com, or Dawson Creek Mirror Editor Rob Brown at editor@dcdn.ca.

To read the complete article, see:
DC Coin expert Jacob Lipson joins the Mirror team as acolumnist (http://www.dawsoncreekmirror.ca/opinion/columnists/dc-coin-expert-jacob-lipson-joins-the-mirror-team-as-a-columnist-1.22208101)