I know this is an old thread but I'm posting here to give information about this blade type.
Until I very recently changed to MK Dance blades, I skated on MK AB Specials. I got these in the '90's from MK when it was still a separate company and based in Slough UK. Previously I'd skated in John Wilson's Coronation Ace as a late teen/20's.
I had returned to figure skating as an adult (30's) and wanted to focus on free style - jumps and spins which I'd not done as an ice dancing youth! I got them on the advice of my then coach Hilary Green.
I'm not surpised these are considered more "dance blades" in the discussion here, Hilary's competative discipline was Ice Dance. That said, they're good for jumping and spinning and I was focusing on free style. I took some coaching sessions from freestyle only coaches in this period too and these blades were definitely up to the job.
As for the blade itself, these are high quality blades, side honed with an awesome edge quality, so the comparison with the Phantom seems right. Although I've now swapped to dance blades, I absolutely loved skating on AB specials and won't part with them
.
The skate tech at my new rink who sharpened them recently and who'd not come across them before, said they were almost like a parabolic to work with.
Side honing, if you look carefully at some of the pictures in the links in this thread you can just about see that the blade isn't flat on the side but has a contoured runner (the blade part) that makes it lighter and contributes to the edge design.
This contour concaves in, starting below where the stanchions meets the runner to a deepest point mid runner width and widens bach out at the edge. This "valley" runs the length of the runner from just behind the pick right to the end of the tail.
This blog has a good description and diagram of side honed blades
https://scarletskater.wordpress.com/2017/06/01/choosing-figure-skating-blades/ .
This wikipedia page also references side honed blades:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_skate
I think there are probably better choices of blade if you're starting new but if you come across these blades at a decent price second hand and they've still got blade life in them, they're a lovely blade to skate on.
I think they'd do early freestyle jumping and spinning, field moves at any level and early ice dance. The tail length is the main downside for ice dance, it limits the close footwork (as the scratches on the sides of my blades, where they've clashed can testify too!).
As for discontinuation, my guess is that these were dropped when MK was bought by HD Sports, who also own John Wilson. and the combined product lines for both MK and John Wilson were rationalised.
I'm not sure when that happened, just that they were still available in circa 1993/4. More info about HD Sports and their brands are here:
http://www.hdsports.co.uk/about-us
As for original cost, I know mine were quite expensive at the time, probably in the range of the higher level MK and John Wilson blades and I remember they were a step up from Coronation Ace.
$600 seems way too much to claim this blade sold for new. If they were selling them today they'd probably retail new for between $450 to $550, if they were in the Phantom/Gold star bracket and based on the current prices for those blades.
That'd also be about right as a "step up from Coronation Ace" when these are currently retailing at around $220 (standard blade) and Phantom/Gold Star/Pattern 99 are the next price points for standard blades types in those ranges.
I hope all this helps.
