>>FYI -
>>SET DELETED ON was my problem...arrrggh!
>>
>
>Did you try my SQL and Sergey's? Do they return the same result? I think mine is essentially the same as Rich's.

Yes, I tried both.
Sergey's worked, but it returned all the item_state ones, not just the two that I was looking for.
Your's had some strange syntax error I couldn't get passed, and I didn't really understand the part of the statement where the 'step1' was. However you DID point out the >=2 intead of = 2 in Rich's - so hey - everyone helped..haha... gotta love the VFP community!