Back in the 1970s, when Thruway toll tickets were full-sized IBM punch cards, I remember that tickets issued at major entrances used colored card stock. This let the toll collector know the entry point as soon as he or she saw the ticket and sped up toll collection.
The ones I remember (from when Spring Valley was the end of the ticket section)
14 - Spring Valley - pink
15 - Suffern - buff (very light brown)
16 - Harriman - light blue (or do I have 14 and 16's colors reversed?)
24 - Albany-Northway - light green
B1-B3 - White with a dark blue stripe on one edge
Less popular entrances had a white ticket. Pretty sure 23 - Albany-Downtown (which we occasionally used) was white.
After the end of the ticket section moved to the current Woodbury plaza, I believe Spring Valley's color moved to Woodbury. I have no idea if 16-Harriman (entering northbound only) retained its color but as most traffic entering went south, it would have lost its value (as I recall, the major reason for moving the end of the ticket section to Woodbury was to get the Harriman - Spring Valley traffic out of the ticket system which caused massive Sunday evening backups at Spring Valley).
Anyone remember any other colors? As a teenager, most of our Thruway travel was 15 (less commonly 14A) to 24 with no reason to venture west of 24 so I have no idea what colors may have been used out there.