Showing your collection: a first exhibition

Most collections are seen by one person. An exhibit is a collection arranged to be seen by everyone: a few pages, or a few frames, that tell a story with stamps and postal material. Exhibiting sounds like something for experts with rare stamps. In practice, many exhibitions have classes for beginners and young collectors, and most first exhibits are built from ordinary material, well chosen and well explained.

Why exhibit

Exhibiting changes how you collect. Preparing an exhibit forces you to decide what your collection is about, to research every item properly, and to notice what is missing. Many collectors say they learned more preparing their first exhibit than in the years before it.

It also connects you with other collectors. Exhibitions are where specialists meet, where judges give feedback, and where you see how others have tackled the same subject. And an exhibit that does well is a satisfying record of years of collecting — worth adding to the “Exhibitions and awards” section of your profile on this site.

Classes and levels

Competitive exhibitions divide entries into classes, so that like is judged against like. The common ones, following the international rules of the Fédération Internationale de Philatélie (FIP), are:

• Traditional — the stamps of a country or issue themselves: printings, perforations, varieties, proofs and essays.
• Postal history — how mail was carried, shown with covers, postmarks and rates.
• Thematic — a subject developed as a story, using any postal material that illustrates it.
• Postal stationery, aerophilately (airmail), and others.
• Youth classes for young collectors, and one-frame exhibits for a small, tightly defined subject.

Exhibitions also come in levels, from local society and club shows to district and state exhibitions, national exhibitions and international ones. India has hosted world exhibitions — INDIPEX-2011 in New Delhi is a recent example — and India Post and the national philatelic federation organise exhibitions at state and national level. Most exhibitors start locally and move up as their exhibit improves; higher-level exhibitions usually require a qualifying result at the level below.

Building the pages

An exhibit is shown in frames — glass-fronted display panels holding a fixed number of album pages. Frame sizes and page counts vary between exhibitions, so read the rules of the one you plan to enter before you start mounting anything.

A good first exhibit has:

• A title page that says what the exhibit is about, how it is organised, and what its most important items are.
• A plan — the chapters of the story — that the pages follow in order.
• One idea per page, illustrated by the items on it, with short, accurate captions. Write about the philately, not just the subject: why this stamp, this postmark, this cover.
• The right material, not just the most material. A page with three well-chosen items and good text beats one crammed with twelve.
• Clean, consistent presentation: the same layout and lettering throughout, items mounted safely in mounts, nothing crooked.

Pages can be designed on a computer and printed, which makes it easy to revise them. Leave plenty of time: most first exhibits are rewritten several times before they are shown. For layout, captions and keeping items safe on display — and for showing your collection online — see Exhibit design (in two parts).

How judging works

At competitive exhibitions, exhibits are marked by a jury against published criteria. Under FIP rules these are, broadly:

• Treatment — how well the plan and story are developed — and the importance of the subject;
• Knowledge and research — how much the exhibitor knows, and shows, about the material;
• Condition and rarity of the items;
• Presentation — how clear and attractive the pages are.

The points awarded decide the medal, from bronze through silver-bronze, silver and vermeil to gold, with “large” grades at the higher levels. Notice how much of the score does not depend on rare stamps: a beginner with a clear plan, careful research and tidy pages can do well with modest material.

Most exhibitions offer a chance to talk to the jury afterwards. Take it. Judges’ comments are the fastest way to improve an exhibit for next time.

Getting started in India

The easiest first step is a local philatelic society or club. Many hold members’ displays and small exhibitions with no competition at all, where you can show a few pages and get friendly advice. Societies also hear about upcoming district, state and national exhibitions, and often help members enter.

Philatelic bureaus are another good source of news about exhibitions in your postal circle. Ask what is coming up, and what the entry rules are. Then pick one, start with a single frame, and build from there.