Fender Stratocaster "None More Black"

I had come to a point where I had basically a bunch of cheap guitars cover most bases: A Telecaster, an Acoustic and a Bass (and of course my Jem but that's not a cheapy), and I was starting to think about a NICE Stratocaster to round out the 'collection' so to speak. Not a Mexican Made one, but a real quality American Stratocaster.

As usual I start looking in catalogs and online looking for something to catch my eye. Obviously I'm looking for a Black Strat with Maple neck again, but then one holiday season (I believe it was around 2005?) I noticed an ad for two 'special run' Stratocasters.. Apparantly a "Fender Special Run" or "FSR" for short is a batch of guitars made in 'limited' numbers - usually made for a large vendor - with a combination of parts you normally wouldn't find on standard retail models. While unique in a sense, this does not make them Custom-Shop guitars, and while numerically they may be made in small numbers (e.g. 300) it does NOT seem to make them 'collectable' to most people. Perhaps in a few decades they will be - who knows.

Anyway - this special edition had 2 different guitars: a 'Bad Boy Blue' and 'None More Black'.

The BBB as the name implies was Blue with 3 Single Coils, while the None More Black was All black with a Humbucker in the bridge. Both had black pickguards and a beautiful black dot-less ebony fretboard.

"Bad Boy Blue"

"None More Black"

I actually was torn between the two, because while I loved the all black guitar I was actually wanting a typical Stratocaster 3x Single Coil setup instead of a HSS (Humbucker/Single/Single) and the blue WAS really sharp looking. Both had S1 wiring giving you tons of switching options. After some decent consideration I opted for the None-More-Black Model.

According to the specs it has:

Features

• Alder body
• Maple neck
• Ebony fingerboard 
• Roller Nut
• 9-1/2" radius
• Medium-jumbo frets
• No dot markers on fingerboard
• Chrome locking tuners
• Chrome hardware
• Black plastic parts
• Black single-ply pickguard
• 2 Samarium Cobalt Noiseless single-coil pickups
• Bridge humbucker
• S-1 switching
• Black Tolex case
• Black vintage leather strap

What is interesting is that in my search for some decent stock pictures, I noticed a lot of 'knock-off' (if you can call'm that) Strats that claim they are the 'none more black' model, but are missing S1 Switching, don't have the chrome knobs (black plastic instead), ebony fretboard (rosewood instead), or Roller Nut (regular nut) etc etc.. not sure what the deal is with those, but the picture above is the correct image. (Even the link above to Music 123 shows the wrong image! It's 'almost' correct, but has the plastic control knobs instead of the chrome).  I must say though that I do agree with the sentiment some people online have put forth, where if it's supposedly "none-more-black" - as in: Can't get any blacker - , how come the knobs, tuners, bridge etc are all chrome still? ;) (but really that doesn't bother me - this guitar looks GREAT!) However for the 'Official' FSR None-More-Black as sold by whoever it was (was it Sam Ash? Or Musicians Friend?) those are all chrome and look exactly like the following pictures (not mine, but exact model)
(Apparently a lot of forums came up with their own definition of 'None-More-Black' - including black knobs/tuners etc - which is probably where part of the confusion comes from).

The guitar feels & plays fantastic - Everything feels & sounds super smooth - it's actually borderline 'too nice' where I don't want to use it since I am afraid of damaging it. However, every time I pick it up it's hard to put down. Even with the Humbucker in the bridge position, the typical '2 & 4' positions have that fantastic strat sound ('quack') and the neck pickup has that beautiful bell-like quality to it. There's just something about a good Strat that puts a smile on my face!

though naturally... I'm still itching for a 3 Single Coil, Black, Maple Neck Stratocaster ;)