I have very old bottles of cloves, both whole and powdered. I’m hanging onto them, as cloves seem to be ridiculously expensive now. And they’re still good! Still bite-y and clove-y, though I mostly use them now to boil in a cup of water in the microwave to make the kitchen smell better…I really should throw away all those half bottles of old stuff and buy new from Penzeys. (I say the same thing about my clothes, pots/pans/kitchen utensils, all those bottles and jars of shampoos, lotions, powders, and ointments on the shelf in the bathroom. No, I guess I’ll pass away and leave it to whoever gets the house next!)
Shortly after posting I followed someone’s link to a gluten free meringue recipe (I have a gluten free mate) As I bookmarked it I noticed, you’ve guessed it, cream of tartar in the ingredients list.
I think there maybe a few things that are more than 2 yrs old, but for the most part, everything is pretty recent. I buy my spices at the natural food co-op and don’t buy too much at a time.
I probably have a couple things there at just under 2 years, but that’s as far as I want to go. Even for whole spices, I try to use them within a year.
I’ve got some looted from an Egyption tomb. What do I win? 
Seriously, I thought about this just tonight as I was whipping up some stew. I got stuff in the rack that is far older than as long as I’ve lived here, and have an unknow origin.
I should probably toss em and start fresh, but I’m such a cheap bastard I can’t stand to toss anything!
Yeah, same here. I keep it with the baking powder, not with the spices.
My oldest spice shouldn’t be more than 2 years old but they’re sneaky. I swear I find out-of-date spices that pre-date my previous purge every time.
The herbs and spices that I actually use are all under two years old, most under a year. I buy most of them either in bulk at the Korean market, for cheap at the Mexican market or, for the ones that I use a lot of, in big containers at the restaurant supply place.
However, I have about half a dozen spice boxes and cans on the top shelf of my baker’s rack that are decoration only. They came from my mom’s spice rack when Dad was cleaning it out getting ready to move. Most are 40-50 years old. Some, as posted upthread, predate zip codes. All are in cool, vintage tins and boxes. The whole nutmeg still smelled nutmeg-y though, when I scratched one before bringing it home.
I’ve got some salt that’s probably a couple hundred million years old.
In the fall, buy some small, cheap apples or citrus fruit, and make pomanders. Wrap in tulle, tie with ribbon, and you have some cheap Xmas gifts and/or decorations.
I was going to say nothing in there is over 6 months old, since my fiance and moved in together less than 6 months ago and I had to start the spice collection from scratch, but then I remembered that the ground cloves that my mother forced me to take from her cupboard have been around as long as I can remember being able to make gingerbread, and that was pre-2000.
They still smell pretty clove-y, weirdly enough.
Mom has some old Coleman’s mustard that probably belonged to her grandmother. Easily 70 to 80 years old.
Me, I’ve got some Posh, Ginger and Scary that look to be in their 40’s. I bring 'em out around Halloween to scare the neighborhood kids. It’s what they really, really want.
I’ve got spice tins that were my grandmother’s, and they were old when she died in '88.
I don’t use the spice, I keep them for decor purposes, but there’s stuff still in the cans.
I don’t know how to date the things, I’m guessing from the '40s~'50s?