How to Destroy a Daguerreotype

I posted this video as part of my Instructables.com post a couple of months back. I thought that you might enjoy taking a look. I overexposed the image so I decided to make an example of this plate. You can see that the Daguerreotype image is made up of a very fine dusty powder on the silver surface. What’s interesting is that there remains a ghost-like blue image on the silver that can only be buffed out.  This is precisely why you must put a Daguerreotype behind glass!