A very important part of any eventual exhibit of lasers will be the graphics that go along with them. Press pictures of RayBan wearing scientists bent over their tables with laser beams in the foreground. Brochures, signage, and other ephemera as well. I scoop them up whenever I can. A good one just found is the 4x5" negative for the pic below. It's from the Wescon trade show in Silicon Valley, and shows four men with Sylvania's new model GL-6211 Helium-Neon gas laser. This laser is so old, it was made before they figured it may be a good idea to put a cover on it! I have the brochure for this RF-excited laser that is dated May 1962. The laser had an IR output at 1.153 microns, and was one of the only commercially available gas lasers before He-Ne was found to laser in the visible wavelength range. The brochure has the same bullet points as the display in the picture, so I think it's for the same show.
I've seen this laser in a number of pictures in old laser books. Notice the large diameter bore and the 2" diameter Brewster windows! Anyway, this will make a great enlargement showing the very early days of the laser industry. There are probably 100 such images in the collection now, with many being 8x10" prints from closed newspaper archives. It will be a bit of a job to enlarge many and frame the rest.