Having hired Eric Catchpole as an apprentice, Lovejoy sets out to unravel the meaning of a Japanese firefly cage.As Lovejoy and Eric are in hot pursuit (on Eric's motorbike) of a lovely lady with something they want, they hit a pool of water in the road and give a drenching to Jane (Lady Felsham), who is busy unveiling a plaque. When, later, Lovejoy rings the doorbell at Felsham Hall, complex chemistry begins, and Jane is soon showing Lovejoy around her attic...

Lovejoy buys a Welsh dresser at Charlie Gimbert's auction, and hidden inside it he finds a rich Arab head-dress, festooned with gold ducats. Catesby, recently out of prison and the son of the dead man whose property was being sold at Gimbert's, says he was promised the dresser. Lovejoy sells it back to him, but without the head-dress. Catesby is soon looking for Lovejoy armed with an axe. He is in good company, as one of Her Majesty's Inland Revenue officers is also after Lovejoy.

Lovejoy sets out to help a young woman to trace a pair of Meissen figures which she sold to raise cash for a drug habit. When he comes across evidence of a double-cross by Charlie Gimbert, he decides to get even.

A robbery at the local museum seems to be connected with the death of a local forger, and Lovejoy goes on the trail of a hoard of Roman coins in the Isle of Man. Two Americans are also after the coins.

The wife and brother of a man killed with a fabulous pair of Regency duelling pistols engage Lovejoy to find them and thus bring about the downfall of the murderer. In the process, Lovejoy puts Jane's life at risk and challenges Dr La Grange to a duel.

Sam Wendell, an old forger, dies of a heart attack while being pursued by a mysterious priest, leaving behind one of his small forgeries. Sam had told his wife it was the key to a fortune, and the priest soon tries to break into the Wendell house. Lovejoy aims to unravel the puzzle, by way of helping Sam's widow (who's left with very little) to recover anything of value. Along the way, Lovejoy dresses up as a priest.

Needing a break from Charlie, Lovejoy takes a job for a few days at a new antiques market in Norwich owned by a client of Jane's. He soon realizes the boss is a con-man and sets out to expose him. Along the way, he also tries to trap a second crook who is selling fake paintings.

Lovejoy finds a bundle of old love letters hidden in the back of an antique clock. He quickly falls for the owner, but are the letters genuine? Under the name of 'Captain Lovejoy', he sets out to find the answer.

Lovejoy travels to Venice to investigate the murder of a friend. The dead friend had bought a painting Lovejoy believed was a fake. In Venice, he is drawn into an ambitious art swindle, and identical twins Caterina and Lavinia are behind the scam.

In Venice, Lovejoy gets a job working for Caterina and Lavinia, with a view to busting their scam, and meets a Scottish forger called 'Lucky' Luciano. Lovejoy and Lucky together unravel the mystery of the Island of Rats.

Lovejoy is evicted from his rented cottage, as Freddy the Phone, his landlord (also known as Frederick Arthur Haig Montgomery Wavell Reeve) owes back taxes on it. So Lovejoy takes to the road and acquires a commode said to have belonged to the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte... and the next thing is to hunt down a continental expert to authenticate it. Did 'Boney' really sit here?

With the naive help of Jane, Lovejoy sets up an unusual form of dealers' ring to bump up the price of a painting he has entered in an auction. Three old friends (Matron, Gideon and Henry the Hearse) rally round, but nothing seems to go according to plan...

Lindsey Parry-Davies, a leading violinist, wants Lovejoy to arrange for his Stradivarius to be touched up so that it will pass as a fake. The Lovejoy Antiques team is puzzled, but they call in the expert advice of Tommy Norris - king of the violin fakers.

Charlie Gimbert returns home from overseas, popping up again in a new and unlikely role as manager to Murray McNally, a famous but disgraced snooker player. Murray wants Lovejoy to find him the billiards table which belonged to Mary Queen of Scots, and it seems that money is no object. A visit to Fotheringhay Castle leads on to a descendant of Mary's jailer, and then to an exhibition snooker match starring the real world snooker champion, Dennis Taylor.

A family struggling to pay death duties needs Lovejoy's help to raise the wind. Meanwhile, Beau Whittaker, working in a local parish church, finds a valuable old flag dating from the American War of Independence hidden behind a monument. A fierce battle quickly breaks out over the question of who is now the flag's true owner.

A retired senior Air Force officer wants Lovejoy to sell his large and remarkable collection of Jewish antiques, but Lovejoy's contacts the Solomons are suspicious about the provenance of the items. Meanwhile, Eric is arrested for theft while driving Jane's Range Rover.

On a visit to Frankie's scrap yard Lovejoy acquires an ancient cannon. He takes a trip to the Tower of London to see what he can find out about it, and while he's away an ordnance expert going under the name of Major Turpin tries to steal the cannon from under Eric's nose.

In the latest of a series of antique shop 'ram-raids', a table Lovejoy has left with another dealer is smashed, and he uncovers a plan to steal a friend's silver. Meanwhile, Jane befriends a young man while doing some charitable work on behalf of the local hospital, and Charlie Gimbert is asked to find a rather special clock for a customer.

Jim Leonard (Lovejoy's antiques mentor) resurfaces, wanting Lovejoy's help with a harmless little scam to catch out a famous dealer. The plot centres on a fake painting by Klimt... Eric plays the role of a rich gentleman farmer, Tinker falls heavily for Jim's wife, and Jane is also drawn into the scheme, but Lovejoy finds out just too late that he too is a victim.

The Lovejoy Antiques team is in Ireland looking for new stock (and also hoping to find a painting by Jack Butler Yeats, for Jane to give her uncle). A bungled robbery leaves them in possession of a page from a rare ancient book, and the search is on for an expert - Brendan Hennessey.

The Lovejoy Antiques team is in Brighton, scouring the town for a really grand set of old china. Charlie Gimbert (as ever) causes some havoc, and then there's the story of the antique chairs...While on the china trail, Lovejoy chances on a stunning rip-off with hundreds of porcelain plates.

Jamie, an old friend of Lovejoy's, turns up on his doorstep needing help with an urgent problem. He can't afford to retrieve a wonderful painting from a pawnbroker, and there are only a few hours to go. Lovejoy agrees to help Jamie raise the cash - but Jamie's estranged wife is also on the warpath...

Lovejoy makes an exhibition of his 'sixth sense' for antiques on a television programme. Later, working on a house clearance, he overlooks an important item and starts to think he may be abusing and losing his talent. After he gets a letter, Lovejoy goes to see another 'divvie' who has lost the magic touch.

Lovejoy buys a set of James Gillray drawings, which turn out to be copies. While trying to sell them, Eric finds a stolen statue with an aristocratic connection at the house of some friends of Jane's. Then there's a Royal Visit to consider...

Jane's old dance teacher wants Lovejoy to sell a mirror. This then leads to a deal which involves the apparently one-eyed Roderick Frew. Jane informs Lovejoy that Alexander is broke, Felsham is in the hands of the receivers, and she is leaving.

Lovejoy has been left to look after Felsham Hall until it has been sold, and he uses the house as a furniture showroom. He thus crosses swords with the beautiful Charlotte Cavendish, who is the auctioneer selling the Hall. At the auction, Charlie Gimbert buys the property, and Lovejoy agrees with him to rent the stables for Lovejoy Antiques.

Lovejoy is threatened by a debt collector and hijacks a country house auction to pay his debts. In the process, he finds the lost 'Kakiemon Tiger', but he has to deal with competitors for it. Beth Taylor joins Lovejoy Antiques on a youth employment scheme, to learn the business.

Charlotte's former lover arrives from New York and invites her to live with him in Paris, but she turns him down.A forger cons Charlie Gimbert into buying some fake porcelain, but Lovejoy catches up with him. In doing so, he discovers a good artist.

Tinker and Eric take a break at Eric's Uncle Jack's pub. Meanwhile, Lovejoy is asked to show a visiting couple around the antiques shops. Trouble is, he also has a very large Welsh Dresser to get rid of. Eric decides to stay on and run the pub.

A rare Celtic cross is stolen from Charlotte's aution house, after Lovejoy asked the porter to let a friend look at it. Charlotte and Lovejoy set out on the thief's trail and find themselves on a treasure hunt in the west of Wales. But they are not the only ones after the cross.Charlotte turns down Lovejoy's invitation to share a bedroom at a village inn.

A friend of Charlotte's who runs a nursing home has asked her to sell some things, and Charlotte wants Lovejoy's help with valuations. One patient, Virginia, believes she has a very rare bureau. Then somebody tries to kill Lovejoy. When Charlotte recognizes his resemblance to a dead poet, they begin to suspect who might be behind the attempts on his life. Tinker and Beth are sent off to London in search of the answers.

Charlie Gimbert asks Lovejoy to value a colonial widow's Chinese treasures. Lovejoy is interested in an unusual Peking cannon and gets Charlotte's opinion on it. The cannon has great significance for a Chinese tong, and Lovejoy and Charlotte are in danger as the Chinese community prepares to do battle over it.

After a dealer apparently disappears over the side of a cross-channel ferry, Lovejoy acquires two china geese. Charlie Gimbert, in pursuit of local ambitions, decides to impress the community and asks Charlotte to act as hostess at a Dog Show and Wildlife Auction at Felsham Hall. Lovejoy organises the auction, including his geese - and Charlotte invites him home for a dinner for two.

Boswell, a friend of Lovejoy's who runs a travelling fair, asks Lovejoy to sell some silver candlesticks for him. However, the police arrive, saying they are stolen property, and Boswell is arrested. Meanwhile, an American friend of Charlotte's wants to buy the fairground Carousel.

Lovejoy takes Charlotte to an Antiques Fair at Cambridge, where the elderly Doncaster sisters, who have financial problems, invite him to value their belongings. Lovejoy finds what seems to be a very rare bible, but the sisters' brother, a Cambridge don, opposes its sale. Lovejoy then discovers the bible is a fake and suspects mischief. Meanwhile, Beth's father wants her to leave Lovejoy Antiques for something better.

Lovejoy is invited to spend the weekend with Charlotte at her best friend's house. The friend is short of money and has a clock she wants valued, but Lovejoy finds a stuffed fish which is worth selling, and misunderstandings arise... Meanwhile, Tinker is keen to thwart Charlie Gimbert's plans to turn Felsham Hall into a health farm, and after studying a twelfth-century charter he starts grazing a flock of sheep around the Hall. Charlie responds by threatening to evict Lovejoy Antiques from the stable yard, so Tinker and Beth take a trip to a health farm.

Lovejoy meets distant cousins from America, who are visiting England. As well as a female ghost, old Lord Wakering has treasures which once belonged to Sir Walter Raleigh, and both Lovejoy and Mary-John Lovejoy, his American cousin, want them. Some of Lord Wakering's things are stolen, and Lovejoy travels in hot pursuit to the Carolinas, where he is not made welcome. Charlotte has to fly over to get him out of trouble.