diff --git a/cataloguing/additem.pl b/cataloguing/additem.pl
index 4d7b00b4b0..1e397a0de2 100755
--- a/cataloguing/additem.pl
+++ b/cataloguing/additem.pl
@@ -262,6 +262,7 @@ if ($op eq "additem") {
             }
             $item->more_subfields_xml(undef);
         } else {
+            next if $c eq 'itemnumber';
             my @v = grep { $_ ne "" }
                 uniq $input->multi_param( "items." . $c );