Paragon ATKO-10 front openers

habanero · Post by **habanero** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 5:33 pm

Does anybody know where a guy could find a REAL (not a clone or copy) of a Paragon ATKO-10 front opener?? The design must be popular because of all of the clones but I had 2 clones and both developed cracks in the blade so I don't want another copy. Why did they stop making them anyway?

Those were some sweet front openers and they were considerably less money than the other quality front openers available.

What's up with Paragon? They just dried up. They had a pretty sweet line of autos for quite awhile now nothing.

Anybody know the skinny on what happened?

Vagrant · Post by **Vagrant** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 6:33 pm

Welcome Habanero
Can't help much on this, I'm a little curious myself about the decline.

Pushbutton · Post by **Pushbutton** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 7:31 pm

I know they ran into some financial problems and legal ones also.Like Vagrant I only heard bits and pieces. The funny part was years ago they did custom collaborations with George Herron,Tommy Lee and Larry Harley that never went over like some recent ones. AG Russell has all the overstock on those items and is selling at good prices. Mostly I remember he used his well endowed wife in some of his ads

PB

jarvis · Post by **jarvis** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 8:01 pm

http://theswitchblade.com/Merchant2/mer ... ll_paragon

Here's an ATKO-10 w/tanto at theknifeguy.

habanero · Post by **habanero** » Tue Jan 20, 2004 11:01 pm

Thanks Jarvis.

I don't remember them being nearly that expensive but I guess with a limited supply the cost is bound to go up.

Paragon used to do some work for Al Mar too. They did the Wor Tacs, SERE, SERT, Corbys and some others. They are drying up too and they are all side openers.

McSwitch · Post by **McSwitch** » Wed Jan 21, 2004 12:51 am

There is an auction on BA right now for a Paragon Z8, which appears to be very similar to the ATKO 8. According to the auctioner, Paragon is still making knives in the US.

BTW, I have an ATKO 10 and it is nice but not 250 bucks worth of nice. I think I paid about 140 for mine. Mine took a little tweaking to work every time and a little Loctite to keep it from rattling the screws loose.

Z8 auction at BA