It’s quite literally the plot of a 1998 Seinfeld episode. A main character in the show lobbies to get a coveted Manhattan 212 phone area code from a dead neighbor after she is assigned the apparently less desirable 646 area code.

And now, 18 years later, the New York Times reports that the original area code has become somewhat of a status symbol in Manhattan, which is a few years away from adding its fourth area code once the third one is exhausted. Some people are even willing to cough up more than $1,000 to land an original 212 area code, saying it proves they are real New Yorkers, the Times reported this week.

D.C., which has a population of less than 700,000 people, is vastly smaller than New York City, so is it ever possible that the 202 area code could be a commodity worthy of a price tag?

By the first quarter of 2019, D.C. may exhaust the 202 area code, according to Neustar, the company that oversees the phone number system for the country. The date is based on an October 2014 analysis.

Each area code generates just under 8 million distinct phone numbers. John Manning, senior director at Neustar, said the company distributes phone numbers to approved phone service carriers throughout the city. The carriers then assign phone numbers to individual customers.

In December 2014, carriers reported they had assigned 63 percent of the 202 numbers Neustar had allotted them — a total that amounted to about 5 million numbers. They have more than 1.5 million numbers they can still assign (the accuracy of this number relies on carriers precisely reporting their figures). And Neustar still has just under 1 million 202 numbers in reserve that can be assigned.

The 202 number was part of the original batch of area codes assigned in 1947. In 2019, it might get some company.