Say you have a "<" sign in cell A1

And cell B1 contains "=A1".

Now, if I use an IF function that says =IF(A1="<","Curly","Larry") I
get Curly.

But if the IF function references B1, I get Larry.

So it seems that EXCEL 2003 is not smart enough to know that the value
of B1 is actually "<".

How can I fix this so that when I reference Cell B1 I get Curly.

Thanks,

Gary