I can give you a stick of Valor, it is a great plum and if fake Valor is reliable there, probably so will the real McCoy. It is usually my best prune plum as produced on a vigorous, mature tree (Myro).
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Yesterday I wrote this to my sales rep at ACN, “Dear Jen, did you ever sort out the question of mis-identified Valors- that is trees sold as Valor that were some other mystery variety- a high quality prune-plum that bears about in Castleton’s season but of slightly higher quality?”
She didn’t directly admit that they’d been selling a misidentified variety but she did write this, "Hi Alan,
Yes, we had spoken about this not too long ago. We requested virus free wood from Prosser and established a new source at our VF budwood site. These appear to be true to type!"
Best,
Jen
So now the fake Valor is no longer commercial. We have to preserve this special variety, so that it continues to be available among hobbyists like us!
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I’ve been grafting it on some of my nursery trees. All my plums have at least two varieties to help assure pollination.
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At least you got her to indirectly admit ACN sent out a fake Valor for a while.
To me, this fake Valor is not slightly higer quality than a Castleton. It is a lot higher quality.
From a scale 1-10, I would rank my Castleton on average a 5 as the quality is inconsistent. My best Castleton may get a 7.
I would rank my average fake Valor a 7/8 and the best a 10.
Bob Vance has the whole tree. Hopefully, it will produce for him next year.
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You have more time to sample. I’ve tasted the two from the same tree in a clients orchard, but only once. Main difference was that FV got more sugar while still firmer but soft. Castelton does just keep getting sweeter on the tree and if a prune plum gets brix into the 20’s they aren’t all that distinguishable in quality to me.
Her last e-mail. “Thanks for sharing that info. I wish we knew what it was/could have positively IDed it. I think those trees were destroyed when trueness to name came into question.”
I sent her a follow up telling her your rating of it. For now on, let’s call it the Tippy plum. For my customers I will name it after whoever is the woman in the arrangement, if there is one. I guess that’s a bit sexist, but I don’t want to put a man’s fruit in my mouth.
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@alan,
Call it Bob in honor of our @BobVance, who actually owns the tree.
Too bad, they destroyall the trees. I bet you that this variety tastes better than many plums that ACN is offering.
I still own about three of them that are in my nursery but I think Tippyplum sounds much more musical that Bobplum or Alanplum.
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Looks like Tippyplums to me.
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Flip that coin on Tippy’s photo. 
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Those are fairly round.I may have that one from Bob Vance.bb
It is a small, round plum. It tastes different from French Improved. Both are excellent.
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I picked my last batch of damsons today. What a plum, 25 brix and still sour! I cooked up a batch of pie filling real quick. Turned out really well, I’ll throw it in crust or crisp tomorrow.
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Smells great!
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That looks absolutely amazing buddy, damson jelly is divine.
This year my bavays gage plums were tarter and better than they have ever been. Extremely sweet candied delight
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Of my several Euro, French Improved suffers the most cracking, followed by mirabelles. Fake Valor, which @BobVance thinks could be Mt Royal does not crack at all. These are the Euro plums that will ripen
at about the same time in the next 7-14 days.
Some Frech Improved cracking was outright nasty.
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Time for plum dumplings and jam! I made the best ever plum jam from your Parfum de Septembre!
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thanks for bumping this. I was just researching euro plums in order to fill in september stone fruit a little more. I’m lucky to live in the willamette valley which is naturally good for euro plums, we produced 10% of the world’s export italian prunes a bit over 100 years ago. since then commercial production has been slight because california can do it cheaper, but our extension service still gives advice:
1993: “Growing Prunes EC773 R.L. Stebbins” https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/downloads/8p58pd15t
1961: “Station Bulletin 582 Plum Varieties for Oregon Quentin B Zielinski et al.” https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/administrative_report_or_publications/kh04dq12c
1993 report lists italian, early italian, brooks, parsons, moyer perfecto, stanley, president
1961 report lists peach plum, california blue, sugar, utility, timme seedling, trail blazer, merton, bradshaw, edwards, tragedy, early italian, parson, miller early sweet, emily, date prune, stanley, weatherspoon, noble french, rein claude (bavay’s green gage), brooks, imperial epineuse, italian, moyer perfecto, president, rich pride
I have italian and stanley, first fruiting this year. I think I’ll add president to get an extra week later in the season. it should be basically a guaranteed winner since it’s grown commercially here
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