Post below turned into a rant, not directed to your personally
It just relates to my nr 1 annoyance in the cannabis industry.
No not for "the seeds" as in all seeds and especially not the "near as good part". For some strains that could obviously be true, for some the opposite.
When talking about old strains you don't buy seeds, you buy genetics. And when it comes to originals, sensi is one of the best places to get them, and in fact where many breeders got and still get them.
The whole thing is so ironic, retaining the genetics of all the pollen chucks people made with amongst others sensi seeds is the hard part and what in fact is messing up the gene pool and makes it harder for actual breeders. Saying that sensi seeds was better 10-20 years ago is just barking up the wrong tree and ungrateful to Ben Dronkers who if he were american would probably called "a hero". Without people like him you'd all have far less strains and hybrids to order online and grow.
It's what mr nice is all about (and hence no fem seed) though, and for some strains his could be the better. Keeping the old ones alive so breeders still have the ol'd dutch IBLs to work with instead of the unstable narrowed down pollen chucks. If I remember correctly they also tried to breed the NL#5 (which is long gone) out of the NL#5/Haze again. Theoretically doable with enough NL#5/Haze to get something close, but in reality downright impossible to get the NL#5 as it was.
The saying "in the past everything was better" is always meant sarcastic, the older you get, the more people go "this and that was way better in the past".
Super skunk never was that uber strain people pretend they remember of it. I smoked it daily for years, and sold a lot of it while working in a coffeeshop 2 decades ago when the whole menu in most coffeeshops contained largely classics only. I've seen the rest appear bit by bit.
Obviously there are many strains/crosses/pollenchucks out there that are much better than the old sensi IBLs, but if you want an old skunk (or o haze and many others) that comes close to what it was 20 years ago...
And where do you think Sam's seeds ended up directly and indirectly? Positronics, flying dutchmen (which is now sensi seeds because he's one of the most reliable and actual seed banks able to retain genetics over long times), and sensi seeds itself. A LOT of work has been done on that since, from which you all benefit still today.
http://www.olded.nl/Old Ed geschiedenis.html (select english translation). I have a grow guide written by those guys nearly 3 decades ago.
Perhaps it's because in the US people are more used to hyping the real thing when it comes to clones, like the real GSC forum cut, or another unstable "elite" OG Kush pheno. Those are hard to keep available for decades, because, they are not bred as a strain.
The whole point of creating stable IBLs is so they and the hybrids created with them can be reproduced endlessly and effortlessly.
That's what breeding is really about... At the same time they, especially combined, provide a wide genepool used to create most of the popular crosses and hybrids. It's why those sensi seeds are so valuable, a LOT of work has gone into those from which not only growers but also many pollen chucking pocket fillers benefit from today. People say sensi is expensive... well, should have paid them instead of the rippers.
And while I'm at it... Dinafem... their popular strains, praised by many, especially by the wannabees in Spain, are nothing more than sensi x mr nice... They won't even deny it. They actual send an email to mr nice to let him know they stole his Critical Mass (which again,
is big bud, something mr nice won't deny either). Their WW is nothing more than our WW crossed with our WW... I say "our" because before amnesia haze and SSH that was the nr 1 popular strain on coffeeshop menus for over a decade.
While their methods disgust me, at least they know what the real good stuff is and are honest about what they stole (others just rename it... as if they magically found an indoor strain that finishes in 9 weeks...)
Starting a breeding project with dutch ibl x bag seed x pollen chuck x forum cut is not only unpractical, it's unethical, and unless you put years is stabilizing that soup simply is not breeding.
Starting a breeding project using sensi seeds AND actually create something new AND reproducible is acceptable though. It is in fact the legal way in NL for non-cannabis species (giving monsanto a harder time...), you can borrow genetics from anyone, as long as what you create with it is actually a new strain that can consistently be reproduced. That
requires IBLs... and if you want to create something new, you need variation, which means a wide genepool, something old, not something 5 pollen chuckers worked on before you.
Ok I'm done