Lovejoy

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...

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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?

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He also has a dance with Jane, newly separated from Alexander...

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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.

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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.

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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...

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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.

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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...

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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