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.
At the beginning of series 2, Lovejoy has just come out of prison after serving a sentence for theft. He believes he was set up and returns to Suffolk hoping to find the villain and get even.
A mean landowner is reluctant to share an inheritance with his hard-up brother, who is a friend of Jane's. Then Lovejoy intervenes, as a favour to Jane, with a cunning plan which depends on a fake statue.
Lovejoy values the house contents of an elderly widow, an old friend of Jane's, who is burgled soon afterwards. Finding he is the local police's prime suspect, Lovejoy decides to work out for himself (with the help of Brian Nunn, a remarkable bin man) who was behind the burglary. Matters are complicated by Eric's 'bin diving' habit.
The manager of a heavy rock band wants to sell an ancient pre-Columbian solid gold statue, and it brings Inca black magic into East Anglia - including two murders. Lovejoy takes on the task of solving the mystery.
Lovejoy and Jane have the job of fitting out a smart new restaurant being opened by Major Linden Walker, an old army friend of Tinker's. With the help of a former prison officer (one he knew on the inside) Lovejoy delivers the goods, only to find he has been gulled. Linden and Tinker's cabaret act Crime and Punishment makes its first and last appearance.
Ashley Wilkes travels around East Anglia painting charming pictures of country cottages and seducing their female inhabitants. An army officer hires Lovejoy to find Wilkes, on the pretext of having a commission for him, but Lovejoy smells a rat. When he finally catches up with the elusive painter, it appears that Wilkes has a terrible secret.
Tinker is thrilled when Madeline Gilbert, a retired film star, sends for the Lovejoy team, as he has an old crush on her. Madeline wants to sell some of her antiques and gives Lovejoy the job of arranging an auction, but before the big day can arrive there is a robbery at the house - one bearing a striking resemblance to a number of other country house raids in England and France. An international gang seems to be at work.
Lovejoy is in hot water for not paying the school fees of his teenage daughter, Vicky. Meanwhile (and much to Eric's disgust) another schoolgirl asks the firm to sell some erotic drawings for her. When Lovejoy sees the same girl being threatened by a man at the school, he decides there's more to the story than meets the eye. He also manages to vex Susan, his former wife, as they try to cope with their daughter's problems.
Amanda Peagram, a local landowner's daughter, is engaged to Roger Hall, and Lovejoy (on the instructions of Amanda's father) is furnishing a house with antiques for the couple. Unhappily, Amanda is not impressed, while Roger continues to play the field. At the wedding, Lovejoy overhears a row between Roger and Amanda's father and later finds Roger's body hidden in a suit of armour... but the body vanishes and nobody believes him. After the wedding, Roger is treated as a missing person. Lovejoy insists Roger is dead, but he can't produce the body - so he decides to investigate the murder and solve the mystery.
Jane's husband, Alexander, has a new business partner called Joe Gruder, but Lovejoy is suspicious of him. Jane gets a call from Lily Gruder, Joe's wife, who has a problem with some pearls and a pawnbroker, and Lovejoy decides to look into Joe's affairs. Mr Gruder does not come up smelling of roses.
Dealer Harry Catapodis has sold some fakes to Cassandra Lynch, a beautiful American widow Lovejoy knows. Caught out, Harry offers to buy the things back from Cassandra, but he admits he will then sell them on to someone else. With a Japanese business man and others, Lovejoy aims to get back at Harry - and to make some money and seduce Cassandra at the same time.
Dealer Harry Catapodis has sold some fakes to Cassandra Lynch, a beautiful American widow Lovejoy knows. Caught out, Harry offers to buy the things back from Cassandra, but he admits he will then sell them on to someone else. With a Japanese business man and others, Lovejoy aims to get back at Harry - and to make some money and seduce Cassandra at the same time.
As the third series begins, Lovejoy returns to Felsham after a long break in Spain, where he was trying (without marked success) to learn to paint. He quickly seeks out Tinker (who has joined a monastery), Jane, who has a new look, and Eric, now working as a security guard. Victoria Cavero, an old friend of Jane's, comes to stay, and Lovejoy loses no time in falling for her. Victoria wants to sell a South American gold ring, and the ring sets in motion strange events for Lovejoy and Jane, including safecracking, kidnapping, polo and betrayal.
Lovejoy is spending more and more time with Victoria, not so much on his business. Together with Jane and Alexander, he and Victoria go away for the weekend at a friend's cottage. Meanwhile, Lovejoy buys some drawings for a song and sells them to an art gallery for a good profit. He is shaken when the pictures are denounced as fakes - even the artist says they are not his, but Lovejoy is sure they are. What is going on?
A band called The Hothouse Flowers is due to appear at a local charity gig, and their manager is an old friend of Tinker's. Before going away with Victoria on a little trip, Lovejoy gets Jane to agree to take in the Flowers. Then, though, the organizer of the planned gig runs off with the money. One of the band decides to sell his valuable antique harp to make good some of the shortfall, but before Lovejoy can arrrange the sale the harp also disappears.Lovejoy works his way up to proposing to Victoria, but she turns him down and goes back to South America.
Lovejoy gets dragged into a sinister plot concerning Mussolini's nose and the burial at sea of Captain Bucknall (Jane's old house-keeper's brother). He is given the job of selling the late Captain's medals, and there is a smart fashion photographer who wants them, but then some drunken sailors come into the picture and he has to deal with the gun-toting Angelo Pantaloni...
Greg Veitch is on a visit from Australia, looking for antiques, but especially what he calls 'my Eureka' - the thing he must have. At Sir Max Spence's house, Greg sees a magnificent bronze from Benin, in Africa, and wants it, but he can't get an export license. Then the bronze goes missing, and Lovejoy comes under suspicion - so he feels he must get to the bottom of what's going on.
Lovejoy is asked to value an ancient Chinese terra-cotta figure of a pig. Then he falls off a bicycle and breaks his leg, landing him in hospital. The pig's owners, curiously, are doing their best to have it under-valued. Meanwhile, Eric needs to sell his ancient motorbike and comes up with the story that it once belonged to Lawrence of Arabia. And pigs might fly...
Vicky finds an old claymore (a Scottish sword) in her attic. Lovejoy buys it at auction and is offered much more than it's worth for it. Puzzled, he investigates and finds the claymore is a map to buried treasure. Someone tries to steal it, so Lovejoy is not the only one hot on the trail. But the treasure is elusive - a supermarket has been built on top of it.
Jane decides to sell an Anatolian rug. When it comes up for auction, an old lady at the sale, Harriet Fisher, buys a Berber rug for her dog, but a young Arab who also wanted it promptly steals it from Harriet. Lovejoy is curious and decides to investigate... Meanwhile, Alexander and Jane are quarrelling badly, and they decide to split up.
The Reverend Harry Nettles claims there is a mosaic floor belonging to a Roman villa in the field next to his church, which is about to be built on. Nobody believes him, and the county archaeologist has agreed to the plans, so Lovejoy races to thwart the developer. He also has a dance with Jane, newly separated from Alexander...
Lovejoy's daughter Vicky disappears, then announces she is living with an older man whose wife has died. Susan, Vicky's mother, does not approve. When Lovejoy investigates, he finds that Vicky's boyfriend is not a widower at all. Meanwhile, Lovejoy is also busy uncovering a fake art scam being run by the son of a cabinet minister...
Mr Kashimoto is trying without success to join an exclusive local golf club. The club asks Lovejoy to value its finest silver trophy, but he recognizes it as a fake. Eric then accidentally shoots a hole in Lovejoy's ceiling, and in the loft above a very similar trophy is discovered... Lovejoy sets out to solve the mystery.
Some old sketches put Lovejoy and Jane on a trail which takes them up to Scotland, where they uncover a plot by another antiques dealer to con one of Jane's friends. At home, Eric is involved with a young woman with some unsavory relations, but she also has an antique mirror to sell. Lovejoy and Jane are moving closer to romance... but who is the girl Lovejoy keeps seeing in the woods?
An old friend of Lovejoy's asks for help when her wartime sweetheart, a Czech pilot who was presumed killed in action, reappears after fifty years. The man has returned to England to collect a cache of gemstones that were buried in the grounds of a church, but he is killed when he tries to retrieve them. Discovering that the diamonds were looted from Prague during the war, Lovejoy and Eric travel there on the trail of the jewels and encounter sinister forces who also want the jewels and are prepared to murder to get them.
Lovejoy is likely to be on his own for Christmas. However, a violent attack on an old Czech fighter pilot leads Lovejoy and Eric to Prague on a treasure hunt. Jane, who was on holiday with friends in Austria, joins Lovejoy in Prague to help solve a mystery of missing diamonds.Tinker is left to mind the shop and make preparations for Christmas.
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.
When a descendant of Sir Walter Raleigh sells his home and its contents, Lovejoy meets an American woman whose name is also Lovejoy. Several antiques go missing along with the woman and Lovejoy tracks them back to North Carolina. Lovejoy discovers that the woman and her brother are operating a scam to claim an inheritance. The pair get Lovejoy put in jail, but Charlotte arrives to help him and together they set about bringing the Americans to justice.
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.
Charlotte buys a painting from a hard-up couple, the Tabors, but finds she has been conned. Lovejoy decides to set matters straight.
A former friend, Max Hunter, who believes Lovejoy had an affair with his wife, kidnaps Charlotte and plans to kill her. But he gives Lovejoy a sporting chance to find him by leaving a series of clues.
Tinker disappears, and Lovejoy sets off to find him. He arrives in Devon, where he discovers that Tinker's real name is Archie and that he has a sister whose hotel business is threatened by a rogue property developer. Charlotte and Beth join them and they look for ways to raise money to save the hotel. Meanwhile, Tinker has lost the key of Charlotte's safe-deposit box.
A tough-talking business man hires Lovejoy to recover a sixteenth-century samurai sword which has been stolen from him. Another dealer, Lovejoy's mentor Jim Leonard, buys the sword at an auction, but it is promptly stolen from him by Joanna, the daughter of the original owner. Lovejoy stays on the trail.
Lovejoy takes an antique gun to a London gunsmith to be repaired, but the armorer is having landlord problems. Meanwhile, an acquaintance of Lovejoy's, Texas Greenberg, is on his way over to buy something special.
Lovejoy is called in by Lord Dunwich to value a silver communion set, and Lady Dunwich wants him to find her some antique prints of the lost town of Dunwich-by-the-Sea (which is now under the sea). Charlie has done a moonlight flit, leaving his old dad in charge of Felsham Hall, and there are some unlikely characters around - a mad Greek priest, a Dutch civil servant, and a strange woman...
The police set up Tinker, so that they can get a favour from Lovejoy. They want him to check out an up-market pawnbroker who is suspected of receiving antiques stolen overseas.
Lovejoy has a dangerous plan, which includes putting himself in the hands of a notorious moneylender and risking the future of his daughter, Vicky.But then, ""Those who hazard all do it in hope of fair advantages...""
Lovejoy buys a nineteenth-century dresser for a song, after getting advice from a Caribbean specialist. Meanwhile, Charlotte has mixed feelings about being left holding someone else's baby.
In the last episode of Lovejoy, our hero gears himself up to marry Charlotte, and his old life begins to splinter. Jane Felsham returns with a splash, and without Alexander in tow - will Lovejoy have to choose between her and Charlotte?
