Black Quill Stems?
 

I've been hunting around for one and find them here and there on ebay, one at JensonUSA, the Profile-Designs H2O, but I haven't seen the right deal (cheap!). Does anyone know of a source for these? Possibly someone with a selection of lengths?

Your best bet would be a local bike swap or eBay. Quality, black quill stems are hard to come by. A quick Google search turned up almost nothing. What size are you looking for?

I tend to see a lot of Salsa quill stems and their knockoffs: quality made from Chome-moly, almost always black and they came in 25.4 as well as 26 (but the 26 are harder to find). Later ones had the "front-plate" feature. I almost always see a couple at swap meets, but try searching "Salsa" in eBay.

I got one off a early 90's japanese mountain bike...

I built up a Schwinn Premis in all black components this winter (getting all white was too hard!). The stem was the toughest thing to find. Originally I got a Salsa stem but they were all recalled about 3 weeks later! I ended up with a Profile Design H20. I guess it is OK. It looks like a mountain bike stem but it fulfilled my needs: 26mm, black, bolt in (so I don't have to unwrap the bar to take it out).

The other thing you can do is to get an adaptor to go from quill to threadless. There are a lot of black choices there, but that is going to cost about twice as much.

SR used to make the "Custom" stem in black, I have seen one, I believe it came on a late 80's Schwinn.

Only becasue I feel like rubbing it in.....I have 2, a high rise SR and a Cinelli.

No.

Well. I have 3, all cinelli 1-A's, all fairly short.

spray paint one?

If they are rare I guess I will hang on to the one I have. A Cinelli 90mm that came on a used bike. I wanted silver so I took it off and stuck it in a drawer.

When exactly were anodized black stems popular? I've seen a lot of pictures of older Italian bikes with black stems, but otherwise silver components.

Mine from an '86/7 Schwinn Circuit. They seem to going for $10-25 in the popular lengths.

I spray painted a Kalloy that came on a Nishiki and it looks great 3 years later.

I stick with the Cinelli 1A. Light, clean, and cheaper than the more modern Cinelli's. Of course, then you have to go with a 26.4 bar, and they've seemed to dry up in used models. Ambrosio's from UK are about $32 new, so you can get a stem/bar combo for about $60 with shipping if you shop tight.

I have an SR Black quill that came stock on the '90 Trek 1400 aluminum. Black quill was the only black thing on the bike, but not sure if it was swapped for fitment at the LBS when my brother bought it in '90.