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Kharis, my experience is centered on the stills from FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN, but what I (and others on the thread) discerned seems to apply equally to other Universal films of the period, where I checked it. In essence, you are correct--the numbering would be representative of the production first (in the case of FMTWM, Production no. 1279), followed by a dash and the number of the still, in the order in which it was shot by the still photographer. The publicity stills from the Art Department include the designation AD as well, and are placed in sequence (apparently where the Art Department shot them during production) mixed in with the production stills .

As an example, still 1279-64 AD is the iconic publicity photo of Lugosi strangling the bent back Chaney in the Wolfman makeup; it is numbered right after 1279-63, the equally infamous production still of Chaney in front of Lugosi behind the ice,and appears along with stills 1279-65 AD, -66 AD, -67 AD, and -68 AD, before returning to a sequential numbering of production stills starting with two Wolfman stills, 1279-69 and 70 (indicating that the production stills WERE shot contemporaneous with the Art Department stills--with Chaney in the makeup). There were a total of 80 production and Art Department stills for FMTWM, and the vast majority are reproduced on the FMTWM thread-- boardmember Bobtheman even did us the signal service of listing all 80!

These stills are numbered independently of, and in addition to, the "behind the scenes" stills, which are numbered in a different way, i. e., 1279-P1, P2, etc. However,the astute members of the FMTWM thread realized that these "behind the scenes" stills could also be placed in their production context with a little effort, and the absence of a production report can be at least partially compensated for by matching the still numbering up with a rough sequence of filming the movie itself. The proof is in comparing the still numbering sequence for a movie such as HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN where the production reports DO survive--the correspondence is impressive. I hope that this helps!