So I went in and changed the product order of a product my client wants to show up first on their site to 1 but it didn't change the sort order. The item with product order 39 shows up first still and the item I have with 1 is still 5 or 6 products down the list? I have newest items turned off.
 
Not sure why this is not working.
 
Thanks for your help.

1. Did you use the 'Change Order' link or did you edit the product and manually change its Product Order value?
-- If you did it manually, make sure you only have the one product selected as #1.
-- You could query the products table to show you the products with the same 'Product Order' number.
 
2. Also, do you have "Settings > Products > Settings" :: New Product Settings enabled.
-- If so, try turning that off and see if it makes any difference