Okay Bella I think I figured this out on my own, After Jake's comment.
By looking at the tables.
You can't just open a topic looking at the first post number.
While viewing the first post on a topic use the move/merge option on the manage topic tab.
You will see a different number in the url in the browser.
For me looking at a post on my site.
In the header it shows #7604 but after selecting the move merge the actual Topic id is 1718.
It is in the browser url window. And it matches the table in the database.
Or you can dig in the table in the database.
