Brand new 30 year old tires. Lol

I bought an older restored cj-5 for my wife as a toy.
She loves that old jeep, but the tires had no date codes on them.
I found a paint mixture from the body shop dated from 1995 so the tires are from that era.
After driving for a little while, the sidewalls started dry cracking bad.
I put a new set on, even though they had almost new tread.
She told me I was out of my mind to change good tires out, but I did.
A co-worker needed tires bad for his jeep so I gave them to him, slowly one by one the sidewalls started blowing out on him, I warned him but he really needed tires with tread.
I think he did tear one fender up when one of them let loose.
But he was warned.