There is an entire culture of Heirloom vegetables where many gardeners share seeds amongst themselves and attempt to preserve some of the agricultural diversity we had before modern monocropping took over. Obviously most of the varieties don't date back as far as this melon but many can be traced back to specific villages in Europe.

Heirloom tomatoes seem to be particularly popular probably because they look really interesting (Different colors, shapes and flavors) and are pretty easy to grow.