> I'm not sure if the min() function will work > as desired on the varchar field. yes, it will > I'd like to use a group by, but there's about 20 extra > fields besides those two in the query... so go ahead and use GROUP BY, like this -- SELECT model , MIN(cat) , COUNT(foo) , AVG(bar) , ... FROM daTable GROUP BY model but i already know what you're going to say next ;o)