The following text is from our May/June 1996 Newsletter "Feature Portfolio":

European Daguerreotypes
from the John Hannavy Picture Collection

    For more than twenty years John Hannavy has been a collector of early photographic images, as well as a prolific writer on British photography--a subject he also teaches. John writes regularly for two British magazines, and to date he has had eighteen books published on the subject of photography and photographic history. John's collection was originally conceived as a broad visual history of photography for the benefit of his students, but his focus is now on cased images, especially Union cases. In fact, John believes he may have the largest private collection of Union cases in Britain. His current research interest concerns the British thermoplastic case maker, John Smith, whose cases are particular favorites in his collection.
    "I have had more than a little luck over the years," says John, "Indeed my first daguerreotypes were two sixth plate by Gustave Oehme--a pupil of Daguerre himself--which I picked up at a small antique fair in Blackburn, Lancashire, twenty-one years ago. What they were doing there, I cannot imagine!" His luckiest find of them all, however, was a stunning stereo daguerreotype of the 1855 Paris Exhibition which he found in the late 1970's inside an old wooden box. He paid £5 for the box!
    We would like to thank John for sharing some of his favorite daguerreotypes with our members and including a description of each.