From the SSE online catalog:

"Introduced as Ruby Gold by John Lewis Childs of Floral Park, New York, in his 1921 catalog. Ben Quisenberry renamed it Gold Medal and listed it in his 1976 catalog..."

Here's a picture of my RubyGold T-shirt on Xmas (what better tomato for that?).

RubyGold is the variety, and has several knock-off names floating around due to people who pinned other names on it, including sweet Mr. Q.

He did what?! Everyone *blushes*.

I would like to know if anyone has an independent RubyGold line not from Q's. I have a similar, but not exactly same heirloom, that is as old as RubyGold or perhaps predates it by around 20 years which I am researching with great enthusiasm. That's why I have the shirt. ;-)

PC

{{gwi:2131991}}

PC

Seeds for Ruby Gold are sold separately and there are quite a few who still list it in the SSE Yearbooks and one of them is a long time friend of mine. See thelink below andnote that Tania also gives a link to Gold Medal.

I didn't know Ben Quisenberry personally but I knew many who did know him, his nephew posted at a site where I hang out and what a surprrise that was and it gave several of us a chance to ask questions about him.

The only way I could imagine that Papa Q. as his nephew called him, was that when he donated his seed collection to SSE he wrote in the margin next to Ruby Gold that he had changed the name. He was not one to do things like that so I'm not so sure about a name change.

The first SSE Yearbook came out in 1975 and there were quite a few gold/red bicolors listed and not surprising since most of them originated in Germany and came to the US from the late 1800's to about 1920 with German immigrants.

The same friend I mentioned above is a collector, if you will, of gold/re bicolors .

And most of the ones that became known via the early Yearbooks of SSE are still with us today..

Carolyn

Here is a link that might be useful: Ruby Gold