Thanks for suggesting a workaround. However, the query is merely
academic. I'm interested in source of the problem or at least why the
result is of type adVarBinary.


Well, it is quite likely a bug in Jet. Several of the MVPs have discussed it
among ourselves and we don't really know what the source of it is, unless it
is a bug.

--
Lynn Trapp
MS Access MVP
www.ltcomputerdesigns.com
Access Security: www.ltcomputerdesigns.com/Security.htm