Originally Posted by SmithNut

It scares me when someone labels me as an expert... makes it so they might think I know something.... big stretch. 18DA1, thank you for keeping the old info alive with this post, appreciate your efforts.

The CS-1 was a fascination to me when they were first hitting the streets, made possible through the "Sales Exchange" program that the US government ran back then. That practice was terminated by Ms. Reno during the Clinton administration, as I was told by folks at Glynco back when I was looking for info on this model.

When they came out I started out doing research for an article that I drafted but never published, so my info is a tad dated as it was assembled in the late 1994, early 1995 timeframe.

A general comment about serial numbers..... When S&W went to the new 3Alpha4Numeric numbering system they migrated all production to this methodology. With rare exception, reserved serial number blocks are not seen outside of the Performance Center runs. This means that you will see guns in a specific shipment with numbers that may not even be close to each other as they are assigned somewhere in the production run and may not necessarily be consistent within a model, frame size, etc., You may find a 3Alpha4Numeric number for say a M36, with the next number being assigned to a M5906, or some other permutation. Again, this is a general statement, with standard production guns I'm sure there are some reserved blocks assigned to specific production guns, but it's not often seen.

The reason I mention this is due to the questions about the CS-1 serial number questions above need to be considered with respect to how the factory assign s/n's (see above paragraph).

In my limited research back in 94/95, I saw many s/n prefixes on some of the guns my local dealer(s) got, with no specific pattern. I found one of my note files with some of the guns I inspected in the NW and location where they shipped are noted below:

Serial Number Brl.

BAU1002 3”

Shipped to US Customs
Glynco, GA
8-17-88
Factory records show 3”, RB
------------------------------
ANE6585 3”
Shipped to Joe Parker, Director
US Customs
Glynco, GA
10-14-86
Factory records show 3”, RB
------------------------------
AWP2235 3”
Originally shipped from factory July, 1987 (to Customs)
Returned to factory March, 1988
Shipped to Ellett Brothers
Cape Bend, S. Carolina
May, 1988
-----------------------------
AYD4957 4”
Shipped to Accu Sports
Ohio
Shipped 12-18-87
Factory records show 4”, RB
-----------------------------
BAU1106
Shipped to US Customs
Glynco, GA
9-24-88
Factory records show 3”, RB
-----------------------------
AVE9293
Shipped to Joe Parker, Director
US Customs
Glynco, GA
10-14-86
Factory records show 3”, RB
-----------------------------
BAB8029
Shipped to US Customs
Glynco, GA
3-15-88
Factory records show 3”, RB

As you can see from the limited sample above, the ship dates of the ones we saw initially up here were scattered in the 86/88 timeframe, and serial number prefixes included ANE, AVE, AWP, AYD, BAU, BAB...... all over the place as I would expect given the s/n assignment methodology the factory was/is using since converting around 1980 to this system.

By no means is this definitive, but it's indicative of what I think you'll find with the CS-1 gun serial numbers out there.