Too bad about the Canabeizen strains not working out. I'm guessing by now they might be a bit on the old side??? I rocked their stuff years ago and used it to cross with my local outdoor strain, (because we have similar climates). I didn't get them from DC seeds though, I got the seeds from Patience, one of their growers. He sent me six or seven strains, I picked through them for keepers growing them inside first and crossed them with my local outdoor strain "Posen". Below are Posen X Second Sight.
He sent me an e-mail a year ago or something like that and I sent him some crosses from his second site and my strain and I think I sent him some crosses from my strain and his pineapple chakra too. About a dozen local guys are growing crosses of crosses of those crosses this year outdoors around here, they worked out good for them too, LOL..
This picture of Second Sight X Posen is four plants from three years ago. They had just started budding in that pic, by the time they finished they were well over the 7 foot fence and they finished nice, no mold. So are they shit? LOL IDK by now they probably are, sitting around getting old and they were hard ones to pop back then. They certainly worked out good for me and a whole bunch of people around here. But I don't doubt for a second that being as old as they are, that they might be hard to sprout and not all that happy if you can get them to sprout. I'm guessing they are a minimum of 5 years old and who knows how well they were handled before they were ever packed up and shipped to Paul.
By the way, What DO seed banks do when they are sitting on old seeds? Do growers offer to replace them with fresh seeds, like some suppliers of perishable foods do? Are the seeds on consignment? What's the deal? Obviously Paul is going to make good, but is it costing him money because he has to fix it?
Five years isn't that old for seeds at all, but honestly folks if you want high germination rates it's not a bad idea to buy something that's been grown in the last year, because that way, even if they haven't been handled perfectly, you still have the best chances of getting good germ rates and healthy seedlings. There are tricks and stuff to have better rates and old seeds can produce fantastic plants, but nice fresh correctly dried seeds are the cats ass. For a lot of us old growers it's just been standard practice to start from fresh seeds each season, maybe once in a while doing a back cross or something, but it's rare that I have started a grow season with anything but fresh last years seeds. Just a habit thing, I guess because that's just how you got new seeds back in the day, when if you were lucky you had come across a handful of real good strains that people would share with you. You either made your own crosses or you didn't get no crosses. LOL