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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> Assuming I plant them, what kind of germination
> should I expect from seeds that old...it's a variety of stuff,
> everything from corn to tomatoes to cukes and squash...
> 

Assuming that the seeds were kept cool, dry, and dark, you can expect pretty 
good germination.  Different vegetables have longer seed shelf life.  Peppers 
are the first to go, then tomatoes.  All this means is that the % of 
germination goes down.

I had saved nearly a quart jar of a favorite type of pepper, Tequila Sunrise, 
and the following two years were very, very bad for peppers and I matured 
none to replentish the seeds.  Finally in the fourth year from the saved 
seeds, I 
planted a whole flat with them and got 0% germination.  In midsummer I dumped 
the entire quart jar on a seedbed, covered it with a little compost, and got 
six plants to germinate out of, oh, 100,000 seeds.  Out of those six plants 
three managed to ripen peppers before frost and I have a good tablespoon of 
renewed seed.

I've had beans germinate after 30 years.  When my grandfather died in 1981, I 
emptied a barrel of corn in the crib and halfway down the barrel was a packet 
of papers he'd hidden there, says the dated note, in 1923.  The corn below 
that was planted and had more than 70% germination rate.

OTHH I left a sealed box of seeds in the greenhouse too long last year where 
the temps got to 100 degrees and it did in every seed there.

Dark, cool, dry.  I got my hands on a supply of dark amber glass jars 
(medicine jars so the lids seal tightly) ranging from 50 ml to 1 litre.  
That's what 
I'm storing my seeds in now .... in the basement ... in the dark.