If a collector decides to make an Open Philately exhibit, it is important to choose a topic, which can be extended, and to read the Guidelines. Begin to gather a collection of philatelic and non-philatelic material, engage in the necessary research, and write up the items. Develop a story and listen to advice and ideas while aiming to make a simple frame.

  Start with a collection, develop a display, and if interested in exhibiting enter a national exhibition. This gives a lot of opportunity to talk to other philatelists, study other exhibits, and to learn through the process, just as when exhibiting in all other classes.

  Open Philately gives an exhibitor the possibility to use both philatelic material and non-philatelic material to illustrate and support the story shown in the exhibit.

 

Competitive Classes in FIP Exhibitions

- FIP Championship Class (only at General World Exhibitions)
- Traditional Philately
- Postal History
- Postal Stationery
- Aerophilately
- Thematic Philately
- Maximaphily
- Philatelic Literature
- Youth Philately
- Revenue
- Astrophilately
- Open Philately
- Picture Postcards

  Many countries acknowledged ‘Open Class’, also called ‘Social Philately’, but this was not an FIP Class until it was recognised as an ‘experimental’ class at the FIP Congress in Singapore in 2004. At the 2010 FIP Congress in Lisbon a Working Group was established, whose report recognised Open Philately as a ‘class’, although without a Bureau or Commission, at the FIP Congress in Jakarta in 2012. In August 2018, the FIP agreed a minor amendment to the judging points, and then at the FIP Congress in 2022 in Jakarta the motion was put and carried that an FIP Open Philately Working Group should be set up to prepare a report for an Open Philately Bureau and Commission for the FIP Congress in 2026.