My local Safeway sells “heirloom” tomatoes, at about $4 a pound. They’re fragile and thin-skinned, unlike all the other tomatoes on sale. They don’t keep well. The heirlooms are also probably picked at break stage and not vine-ripened, for logistics reasons. They’re good but not as good as something from the garden.
I grow Cherokee Purple variety. Not pretty to look at and don’t even appear red until you slice them and they are bright red inside and very tasty. We can them, and when you blanch them and slip the skins off they are red. The odd color is only skin deep.
I got seeds at Monticello during a visit, and save them year to year. They have few seeds in them. Supposedly they were a favorite of Jefferson.