The Number property identifies the article on the news group. The number is assigned by the server, and user cannot change it. Use the Item property of the Articles object to access to an article using its number. Use the First property to get the number of the first article in the news group. Use the Last property to retrieve the number of the last article in the new group. Use the Next property to get the number of the next article on the news group.  

The following sample displays the number of the first article in the "vb.general" news group:

Dim n As New EXNNTPLibCtl.NNTP

Private Sub Form_Load()
    Dim g As EXNNTPLibCtl.Group
    n.Connect "news.devx.com"
    Set g = n.Group("vb.general")
    Debug.Print g.Articles.Item(g.Articles.First).Number
    n.Disconnect
End Sub

The following sample uses the First property of the Articles object to retrieve the number of the first article in the "vb.general"  news group:

Dim n As New EXNNTPLibCtl.NNTP

Private Sub Form_Load()
    Dim g As EXNNTPLibCtl.Group
    n.Connect "news.devx.com"
    Set g = n.Group("vb.general")
    Debug.Print g.Articles.First
    n.Disconnect
End Sub