I collect lasers from the '60s, and have identified only 24 unique commercial models from 7 manufacturers that were built between July 1960 (Maiman's press release) and November 1963 (Kennedy's assassination). I call them "Camelot" lasers to evoke the legendary enthusiasm and romance of those days of "the right stuff."
One of them, the Raytheon LHM-1, was used by MIT for Project Luna-See in '62, where they hit the moon for the first time with a laser beam. Sounds like a "laser pointer" application, doesn't it? As soon as there were lasers, people wanted to point it at things to see the spot hit them. In this case, it was more about collimation, tracking and detection (which was difficult because it was 7 years before the retroreflectors, suggested by R. H. Dicke, were put there by Apollo 11).
My collection currently has 8 of the 24, and I know the location of 3 others (1 of which I'm going to buy). The manufacturers are Raytheon, Maser Optics, Trion Instruments (which became Lear Siegler in 7/62), Optics Technology Inc., Perkin Elmer, Spectra-Physics, and Hughes Aircraft Company. The model numbers will remain anonymous for obvious reasons.:shhh:
If anyone finds an old laser by any of those companies, please contact me! See this for a good example of what might be lurking in boxes of miscellaneous parts:
http://laserpointerforums.com/f63/fantastic-buying-experience-laser_ben-52007.html