Oh my - I see what you mean then! It was 1980 for me, but didn't get round to starting growing until late 80's. My mate bought a Phototron, which he used to grow NL in, and then gave it me when he got a bit bigger, but it didn't last long. I used to just grow African bagseed under fluoros, and then he gave me a Sensi Afhgani #1 male, which I decided to flower out. Once I'd made a few seeds I was hooked...
But the blues/smelly plants began appearing about '92/'93, I would guess, so the few years before that are the times to be looking at, in terms of possible parents...
I started with African/Jamaican bagseed too and funnily enough the first commercial genes I grew were Afghani #1 too. Went to the dam for the first time in 97, went in the Sensi shop, asked em what was their easiest to grow out of the cheaper strains and they gave me that. Was easy to grow, very potent stone, boring though.
Just get the late 80s SSSC, Seedbank, Sensi and Posi catalogues and look at the skunk hybrids they used to sell, Garlic Bud is a prime example, Blues or the Smelly One could easily be something like that.
Some pics from the old Sensi catalogue:
This is the good old staple Afghani #1, I can almost smell it from here, they were very smelly plants:
Super Skunk which is Afghani #1 x Skunk #1:
Shiva Skunk,which is Skunk #1 x NL#5:
But those are later, from the early 90s when Neville was working for Sensi, Blues, Livers, Cheese etc are from an earlier generation of seedlines sold, back in 1984 before Sam arrived, this was what Neville was selling:
That's what Neville had before Sam introduced new genes and Neville went to the US to find new stuff, no skunks to be had, interestingly he had NL and that is the only candidate from the 84 vintage that could be the source of Blues, Smelly etc. BTW, notice that Purple Skunk that's a inbred Kush, wonder how many of the modern US Kushes come from that line originally? Neville sold so many seeds to the US by 1987 he appeared in HT with sacks and sacks of money. The Mexican x Afghan makes me wonder too, many have speculated Chemdawg is Mexican x Afghan, would make me laugh my ass off if chemdawg is that old Neville line after all the years of US folks slagging off Dutch genetics!
Fast Forward a couple of years to 87-88, the infamous High Times 'Inside cannabis Castle' article leading to the first cannabis cup, Neville had made millions in seed sales to the US and now had a glossier, more professional looking catalogue. 87 was the year he introduced skunk, big bud, G13, Hashplant etc so this is where you wanna look for your prospective candidates for the true identities of Blues, Smelly one etc.
So there you have the source material, let the speculation begin! This should be fun. How many people, especially us tight-fisted northerners just ordered the 'Chi P Variablis' cos it was the cheapest and you got a mixed bag of seeds!? That in itself makes speculation more difficult.
Then we have SSSC, I have their catalogues too, and they are huge, 40-50 strains, so there is plenty of possibilities!