hahaha yes! There is the age factor! Memories do have a tendency to "evolve"!
And I am 50! Yet I am very certain of the specific strain. I am also certain it isn't the same as was offered in major seed catalogues like Burpee. That I know because I grew them side by side one year.
I grew Rutgers seedlings in pots thinking maybe if they were not "shocked" so badly by their rough treatment they might produce a week or two earlier and Dad brought home some bare rooted commercial Rutgers seedlings anyway, without asking me and without even telling me he was going to do it! I could never forget all the extra work involved in expanding the garden that year.
They definitely were different. That's how I found out about it. A little investigation and I found out Dad's secret. They were specifically breed and started for the commercial growers in Indiana at the time. It also is what got me to thinking there MUST be an easier way to start a garden in virgin sod besides a shovel, a tiller, and a whole lot of sweat! I have perfected that never till method now.
Turned out my seedlings did do better at start. No heavy wilting or loss of leaves like the bare root from the fridge commercial ones. But by mid season those bare root commercial Indiana strain plants had caught up and passed my seedlings by a significant amount. Side by side, so I am sure. Taste was so similar there was no real difference, but productivity was very much increased.
At the time I was actually somewhat annoyed with my Dad. He seemed to get a kick out of proving all my efforts to find a superior all purpose tomato were to no avail. He had a way of kinda rubbing it in. It was always in good humor, but still ... I always was pretty competitive by nature.
I wish Tomatoville existed back then. Surely I would have found a good one to beat Dad with all the varieties and resources for growing techniques found here!