Looking for older light emitting diodes - sometimes called Solid State Lamps (SSL) or optoelectronics by manufacturers in the early days of LED production. If you have a collection, box, or bin full of LED's and think some of them maybe older I'd be interested in giving them a good home.
I'm trying to build a small display of the evolution of LED's from the late 1960's to today (so about 50 years) and the older LED's are hard to find these days. My best shot at finding good examples are likely from someone with a large component collection spanning that time-frame or someone who stumbles across them in such a collection of components.
Here's what I'm looking for:
Manufacturers: Monsanto, General Electric, Western Electric, Fairchild, National Semiconductor.
Types: Individual emitters (not looking for alphanumeric or 7 segment types)
Colors: Visible spectrum (no IR) red, green, yellow (most of the other colors didn't come along until the following decades.)
Things to look for: Gold plated leads, can construction that resembles a transistor case with the top cut off, super weak light output.

I've managed to snag most of the manufacturers on the list above, with the exception of General Electric. My understanding is when GE made LED's (that they called SSL's) they were really pricey and not made for the masses. They seem to have been made in the "can style" construction method but not necessarily gold-plated. I'd really love to find one that *isn't* an IR led (found plenty of IR type by GE.) But I'm interested in everything - I've already uncovered a few that I hadn't realized existed.

Thanks!

 

Here are some items to look for... I don't have any old ones but very interesting topic.

http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/tubepage.php?item=39

Some really cool looking LED's

 

Here are some items to look for... I don't have any old ones but very interesting topic.

http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/tubepage.php?item=39

Some really cool looking LED's

Thanks. I've already begged Richard for help and he's be gracious enough to supply me with several early emitters for my collection. He was the first person to sell me an MV-1 years ago. He actually still has a store for some of the LED's he has: be warned you might want to email him prior to ordering because he does take a while to reply sometimes. Thankfully, he's a very reasonable and helpful guy to other electronic enthusiasts.