There's no such animal as a "Colt 150" but there is a Case 150 which is the fraternal twin of a Colt 2310.
The 130/150/155 Case tractors will be painted Desert Sunset on all of the tin parts but the frames, axles and wheels will be Flambeau Red. So, if you saw these tractors and they were painted with the same scheme, then none of them are Colts.
Preference is a personal thing. Ask CM2 and he'll tell you that he loves Desert/Red tractors far more than he does Power Red/Power White models. The 130/180 Case tractors are the only two that came with the "round top" fenders and some people love those models for that reason. I'm with Frank regarding the 130 as being the pick of the litter because of the round fenders which makes it different than the 150/155's but also because it is the first year that Case offered a garden tractor for sale and the production numbers are the lowest for that model.
As I just got finished telling the chap who has the 2712 Colt, do not go into this restoration in the belief you will make money. YOU CAN'T. More than likely, you will lose money. So if you don't have money kicking around that you are prepared to lose, then don't buy any of those tractors. Instead, keep your money under your mattress and when no one else is around, bring it out ...stare at it, caress it and then put it back under your mattress.
However, if preserving a piece of history excites you...... if getting your hands dirty and losing a bit of blood while taking apart something old and making it look brand new again turns you on, then buy one or all of these tractors and have at it. At the end of the process, you will be able to display to others what your time and talents have produced. That's where the profit is found in GT collecting. Fellow enthusiasts will appreciate what you did but no one will be impressed by the money under your mattress.
The question at hand is how much it will cost you to buy all three tractors from this person. If you could get all three for $450.00, then that would be a very good price for tractors that are running, in decent shape and not missing any parts. From a collector perspective, attachments such as mower decks and front blades have no value. We show the tractor itself mostly unless the attachment is unusual and rare. The bulk of these tractors were sold to cut grass and push snow so that's one of the reasons collectors don't care about attachments and they are unwilling to pay anything extra to get those attachments.
It's so much easier to store, load, unload and show a tractor that has no attachments on it and often less painful physically as well. The man who owns those tractors will be more prone to selling all three to one person for a cheaper price than selling them one by one. You might as well understand right now that few people are content with owning just ONE of these tractors. Yes, it starts out that way but then after the first one is done, you will have an urge to own a second one and it just blossoms from there. Buying all three right now will not only save you some money but it will also save you a lot of unnecessary anxiety that could be channeled into restoration work.
