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Why not use an identity column ? There are plenty of number and letters available ! Leave the identity column as anumber until it is needed, and then convert it. If you only use numbers and upper-case letters you have 36 (base 36 !), so your range is from 1 to (36^3 + 36^2 + 36) (about 48K). Using lower-case letters too gets you to 240K+ ! Surely that would be sufficient !

Mike