Using Excel 2003 on an XP box

The following code snippet causes a mismatch error when it executes:

Range("B16").Value = Target.Value + Range("B16").Value

Now I have formatted "B16" to be of type Number, (and it is initially empty,
the watch directory says it's value is "") Target is also formatted to
be of type Number.
I pasted Range("B16").Value into the watch window along with target.value

The watch window says Range("B16").Value is of type Variant/String while
target.value is of type Variant/Double, which I'm sure is why I get the
mismatch
error. I thought perhaps since Range("B16").Value is initially empty I could
set it to 0 (zero) on start up of the worksheet. That did not fix the
problem. Why is Range("B16").Value of type Variant/String ??

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j.f.dolan