Can you give more details on the "misleading 'heirloom' provenance"? To understand it correctly, an heirloom would simply be a seed that has never been grown commercially or on a large scale. It would be those varieties that are simply grown on small scale farms or homesteads correct? Would the misleading part be that seeds being sold as 'heirlooms' really in fact may not be?
There is nothing by way of horticultural practice (or via USDA) that forbads seed houses from claiming most any open pollinated seed as an heirloom.
If you croud one of the matriarchs of OP tomato growing (like Carolyn Male), you'll get what amounts to the old newsletter standard of +50 years old open pollinated cultivars as the 'standard'. its ok by me if she calls 'em that.
Seedhouses can and have listed OP tomato as recently developed as Traveler, as an heirloom.
solely because it permits a higher retail price.
I won't go into fuzzy headed mythology of which goose bean seed was taken from.
Please don't take this as an agrument against growing open pollinated plants. They are nearly my entire inventory.
Also please don't take my reluctance to grow F1 hybrid as a compelling reason not to grow those either. F1's utility for commercial growing and disease resistance for them that need it should be reason enough to grow them.
Muddling all together with GMO's is a disservice that I credit to Jere Gettle, and Dave Belanger. It does not help the new gardener find their own way to a full pantry.
I'm growing again this year, Burpee's Long Keeper a favorite of mine. Its a fine OP tomato for my early winter plate as a fresh tomato. Burpee stopped selling seed a number of years ago. Saving seed of them is all there now is for my gardening option.
We are getting far afield from; does seed need to be certified as organic ? To be grown as organic; again I'll repeat, to some it does.