Yes, indeed sad that the spuriously marked CS on so many items has cast these arms in such a bad light. Of course, not all CS markings are spurious, but as you stated, they still get passed over.

Somewhere a few months ago, I ran across and order from the Trans-Mississippi Dept. that ordered all weapons bought, captured, etc. to be marked to show Confederate Government ownership. I take this to mean a "C.S." or "C.S.A." mark. Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to come back across that order.

I have two guns that are marked with a "C.S.", and other markings. While neither has real good provenance, by all evidence, they are indeed Confederate weapons.

One is actually a State of Alabama owned weapons, but is marked in two places (in two different type fonts) with the "C.S." This arm, if it is indeed a genuine Confederate used arm, would have been delivered by trans-shipment to Texas in 1863, and delivered to the State of Alabama. So, it may make sense that it is C.S. marked.

The other, if genuine, would have been issued to a soldier while he was in the Trans-Mississippi Dept., when he became an officer. He traveled to Texas, from Va., to take the Ordnance Officer exam in 1864.

I also had a bowie knife that was marked in sanserif typeface "Selma" and "CS". I was convinced, because of this, that it was a fake and sold it as such. I now know that sanserif typeface was "invented" in the Confederate States, and have had several examples of printed documents of the Confederate period that used the sanserif typeface, as well as examples of Confederate metal items stamped with sanserif letters. The man that I sold it to, who owns what may be the largest private Confederate collection in the South, said "I knew all along that it was real." Sure which I could have a "do over" on that one!