Elton--the canopy came with the tractor--but i had to replace the roof as the old one was very rotten--I modified the roof a little to more closely match the canopy shown in my parts book

Neil, Thank you for that observation. That is a good explanation as to what happened. There have been signs on the tractor of a previous repaint, and I'll bet that the later decals were what was available at the time and were used. Now I can feel comfortable with the new ones received.

Thank you all for your help! I encourage anyone reading this who is not a member, to join and take full advantage of the knowledge and kindness of the members.
Elton

The scan below is from Form 32523, D4 Tractor Parts Catalog, Serial # 27570 up. That book came with the original purchase of Tractor 7U40431.

On your question about the "patent plate". I found someone who will reproduce the plate for around $100. Tractor 7U40602 came with a etched metal plate (part # 8H1622) riveted to the the right side of the seat box. Tractor 7U40431 came with a decal instead of a plate. That decal is not part of the set from ACMOC and is not listed in the parts book. I always thought that the the earlier tractors had the metal plate, but not on these two tractors.

I do not think that CAT sold or advertised machines by a model year listing.

This scan is the contents of the set from ACMOC I got a couple of years ago for 7U40431.

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in the big scheme of things it doesnt matter. especially if your doing a working restoration. not a museum piece that never gets worked. they are era appropriate and what was used around that time. who knows whether your machine is all original or was repaired by farmer ingenuity "I'll scavenge parts from the other machine to fix this one" which is how many of these machines are still working today. and is the only way to fix many machines as some parts are unobtainable.