I suppose it's the fiercely competitive nature of the business: people bidding in public against each other for a desired object, sometimes going way over the value of the item just so they can have the satisfaction of having done the other person down.

But I have to admit I do love auctions. Many a Sunday morning I have spent at the local auction room with the best of the bargain hunters, rootling through cardboard boxes crammed with cracked plates and chipped jugs, garish glassware and old bottles, pot lids and costume jewellery and flicking thorough dusty tomes and stamp albums, folders of carefully mounted cigarette cards and old photographs.

Like all the other bidders, I hope to come across an undiscovered and priceless Canaletto or an unrecognised piece of unique Clarice Cliff pottery.

Before we were married, Christine collected Willow Pattern plates. When we were courting, I thought I would surprise her on her birthday with a fine specimen I had seen displayed in the auction house window.

Unfortunately, on the day of the sale the auctioneer rattled through the lots like a Gatling gun and, by accident, I bought another plate. It was, without doubt, the ugliest piece of pottery I had ever set my eyes upon. It was a large plate depicting three stiff Chinese figures walking across a crudely painted bridge. The picture looked like one executed by a small child. Worst of all, there was a long hairline crack right across the centre. Christine was aghast when she saw it and even more aghast when I told her how much I had paid for it. "It's horrendous!" she cried. "I wouldn't eat my fish and chips off it."

The plate was summarily consigned to the back of the cupboard where it stayed for many years. It saw the light of day one afternoon when Christine decided to attend a social event at our children's school. The headteacher had prevailed upon another parent, a local antique dealer, to talk about and value small items brought in by the parents and teachers.

Christine took in a very old and delicately carved Japanese ivory figure given to her by a great aunt and a delicate and beautifully hand-painted porcelain bowl, a Phinn heirloom, given to her by my mother. After some coaxing I persuaded her to take in the plate.

The antique dealer examined the objects displayed on tables before him with a world-weary expression. His comments were cursory and disappointing for the owners of the objects: "damaged", "of little real value", "cheap copy", "poor quality". He was not impressed with the Japanese figure. "Plastic reproduction," he told Christine. The beautiful hand-painted porcelain was mass-produced and of little value. Then he spied the plate and went weak at the knees. "It's magnificent!" he gasped, stroking the rough textured pottery. "This is Delft, circa 1680, an extremely rare example of Lowestoft ware." He pleaded with Christine to sell it to him. My wife politely declined and on returning home told me of the plate's provenance as she placed it in pride of place on the dresser. "Shall I fetch some fish and chips?" I asked her.