Question on origin of Eva's Purple Ball

[carolyn137]

Darrel, you said in your above post that you thought Eva Purple Ball might be a modern variety.

So I wanted to share with you that it's almost a dead ringer for a variety that's called Redfield Beauty.Both have that white mottling on the surfae and are of roughly the same size and shape, although one SSE lister says cherry sized for redfield, which is wrong, and both have a tendency to fall off the vine when fully ripe.

Redfield Beauty was released in 1897, here's a link to Victory Seeds with a description, since Mike has a special interest in Livingston varieties and Red field Beauty is thought to be a selection from the Livingston variety Beauty.

http://www.victoryseeds.com/tomato_redfield-beauty.html

And here's Tania's desription:

http://t.tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Redfield_Beauty

Redfield Beauty I think was one of the varieties that either Craig or I got out of the USDA PC Grin back in the 90's when it was still possible to do that.

My stacks of SSE Yearbooks on the floor to my left it too much for me to look through right now, but I did pull out the 2000 which was near the top and saw that I did list in in 1995 and I was the source to almost everyone who listed it in 2000. If I found my original listing it would have had an NSSL accesion number.

All to say that many of the Livingston varieties turned up in Europe in the late 1800's and early 1900's so could there be a relationship between the two and Eva Purple Ball started out in Germany with Joe Bratka's relatives?

it's a possibility but the fact is that Redfield Beauty dates from about 1897 so is not a modern variety,I had grown Eva Purple Ball before I grew Redfield Beauty and was a bit surprised to find that they were so much alike. But for me Redfield was a bit lighter pink, a bit smaller and I thought the taste of Eva was much better. But both also had that distinctive white surface mottling.

But of course who knows whose hands the seeds had passed through before I got them. Eva went directly from Joe Bratka to me, but Redfield was donated to the USDA, as I noted and Mike at Victory seeds also notes in his description and does indicate an NSSL accession number.