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The first transistors were made by Bell Laboratories and these prototypes did not bear a logo or other Bell identification. They usually had a 4-digit part number, 1xxx, where the leading "1" was implicit (i.e. missing) and the three variable digits were indicated by coloured paint dots using the resistor colour code. Western Electric soon began to produce more commercial versions which bore the letters WE and the printed part number. Later WE transistors bore the slanted lettering of the WE logo, as shown here.
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Raytheon were one of the first transistor manufacturers. Their oval logo is well known from their tubes but it only appeared on their very earliest transistors, the CK703 and CK716 point-contact types. On all other transistors they just used their name in plain capital letters.
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General Electric were another established tube manufacturer that rapidly moved into transistor manufacture. Their early devices were mostly painted black. Some bore the famous GE logo on the top, but many just had the letters "GE" on the side to indicate the source.
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CBS-Hytron manufactured point-contact transistors initially . They dropped the "Hytron" for their first junction types.
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Transistor Products made some early point-contact types which bore this PNP transistor logo and usually the company name. I don't have any but would love to buy some.
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RCA's classic logo was rarely used on transistors: usually they bore the initials in capital letters.
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Delco, a subsidiary of GM which was an early manufacturer of power transistors, used a circular logo with their name in capitals curving around the top quadrant above the part number.
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Syvania's excellent "lighning bolt" logo appeared on most of their transistors, often so small as to be quite smudged. However some transistors just had the company's name on them, and some had both.
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Texas Instruments' distinctive logo has been used from their earliest devices and is unmistakeable even when the printing is smudged.
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Philco was another manufacturer which just printed their name in capitals, either around or along the transistor body. Their devices mainly used a distinctive "cigar tube" body shape.
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Westinghouse, an early pioneer that later specialised in power transistors, used a logo of an underlined W with blobs on the top vertices, as shown in this rather messy example. Later versions were simplified to a plain W in a circle. An English version exists with a pair of crossed arrows through the horizontal and vertical mid-lines.
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Motorola is a company that is not often thought of as a transistor pioneer, but they are listed in the first GE Transistor Manual in 1956, and here's their logo on a low-numbered 2N type.
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Clevite entered the semiconductor market by buying Transistor Products (I think, anyone who knows the facts, please
). They were another manufacturer that used a boring capitalised name rather than a symbolic logo.
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Bendix made transistors for a while, specializing in power types. Their logo was a "handwritten" name in this rather fetching orange colour.
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Transitron - one of the more colourful stories of early US semiconductors. The company was founded by the Bakalar brothers to capitalise on the exploding transistor market but only really found success with fast-switching gold-bonded diodes. Within a few years, mismanagement and quarrels had caused the company to collapse. Nevetheless, a number of their transistors can be found, bearing the stylised "T" logo, often in slightly unusual packaging with poorly printed part numbers, and sometimes the whole company name.
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Tung-Sol transistors are easily recognised by their famous "baby blue" colour. This is a 2N65.
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General Transistor had a logo which cunningly wove the PNP transistor symbol into their initial letters. On actual transistors a more rounded version was used which often was smudged in printing. They made a number of GTxx transistors equivalent to the standard 2Nxx types.
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Hydro-Aire transistors are very rare. I only possess one, this CQ-1. The logo appears to be the red capital letters "HA". This company was also known as Marvelco Electronic, a division of National Aircraft Corporation. How this became Hydro-Aire I would be very interested to learn.
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National Union Electric transistors are also rare. I only possess one, this 21A, although I know a couple of other people who have it and one other type. The logo on all of them is just these crude silver letters.
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Radio Receptor were another early manufacturer who did not last long. They had this rather nifty logo of "RR" in an ellipse.
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Hoffman Semiconducors used a capital H with a lightning bolt through it.
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Germanium Products were yet another early manufacturer who made interesting devices but only survived a few years. Unfortunately they did not identify themselves on their devices at all, although you can tell from the part number that they made it.
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Minneapolis Honeywell's early devices either bore no manufacturer's identification, or had the capitalised word "HONEYWELL" on them.
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Hughes Aircraft Corporation made a series of transistors in unusual axial packaging. They did not print a logo or their name on them.
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PR Mallory made early transistors in unusual packages with unusual part numbers like 440-C-E. I don't have any. Does anyone have some, or know anything about this company?
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