John:
At the Massey National Show in 2002 there were six GP's there, all were painted up and looking pretty. One was right from out of behind the barn total rust no paint at all except for the head that was just put on to get it running, also the gas tank was a jug straped on by a bungie cord but the tractor ran good.
You should have seen the people flock arround this tractor like cattle arround a feed bunk. I am not kidding the grass around this tractor was wore out by the end of the day and even though I was one of the owners of one of the painted up GPs I was flocked around this tractor with the rest of the people.
I am like you, the more origional the better!! Another thing I really like to look for is a Serial Number I like to find tractors that came off the line close to mine or try to find the Oldest or newest number of any model tractor. It would drive me absolutly bonkers if I owned a tractor and cold not find out what the origional serial number was and I have seen this happen like the GP in Robert Crawford's collection, Very nice tractor but no way of finding the origional Number.