Beige is the color of Macs with the in-cut Apple logo on the front. Platinum is the color of the machine with the words "Macintosh Plus" on the front.
I think all machines sold as the Macintosh Plus have the words on the front. Its only upgraded machines that don't. Apple sold a Macintosh Plus upgrade kit that included a new case back (beige, obviously, to match the old case front), so there are a lot of them out there, but they did not start out as Pluses.
Not sure when the color changed from beige to platinum. Apple changed the label on the back from "Macintosh Plus 1Mb" (with a copyright date of 1987) to "Macintosh Plus" (with a copyright date of 1988). It is possible that the case color changed at the same time, but it is also possible that it changed before that. As far as I know, from asking a seller on eBay, the upgrade case backs say "Macintosh Plus 1 Mb" but they do not have a copyright date. So it is also possible the case color changed when the 1987 copyright date was added to the label. It does make sense that Apple would have stopped making the upgrade kits in 1987, and so there would no longer be any need to keep the case color beige ("putty" is really a better description of the original color--and don't get me started on "platinum").
The platinum machines had new ROMs in them. See:
http://developer.apple.com/technotes/hw/hw_11.html
Unfortunately the note doesn't say when the new ROMs came out, but 1988 seems awfully late and 1987 more like it.
In sum, if I were a betting man (and assuming the eBay seller did not miss the date), I'd bet that all beige machines say "Macintosh Plus 1 Mb" on the back with no copyright date. All platinum machines say either "Macintosh Plus 1Mb" (with a copyright date of 1987) or "Macintosh Plus" (with a copyright date of 1988).
Eric
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