I CAN tell a Monet from a Manet, and a Degas from a Dali, but I'm no Brian Sewell.

I like to wander around galleries, especially if there's a decent gift shop, but since my art collection consists of little more than a Klimt fridge magnet, a Lowry mug and a Toulouse-Lautrec calendar, the veiled world of art dealing and high end auctions is alien to me. And with so much poverty in the world, I find it obscene that people with stacks of money can't find anything more worthwhile to spend it on than paintings to be stored in temperature-controlled basements, where no-one can even see them.

But the link between money and art continues to hit headlines, especially when someone unearths an original that's been gathering dust in their granny's attic for decades. That wasn't quite the case with Picasso's Women of Algiers, but this week it became the most expensive painting to sell at auction, going for a final price of $179.3 million at Christie's in New York. The sale of the painting, a cubist depiction of nude courtesans, followed prolonged bidding from telephone bidders.

One art expert said that, in Picasso terms, $179m will "probably look inexpensive" in 10 years' time. That might as well be Monopoly money to me, and I think the painting is hideous. Then again, since all I've got to show for Picasso is a postcard someone sent me from Barcelona, what do I know?

The Women of Algiers sale got me thinking about the value of artefacts that, to the untrained eye, could appear to be nothing special.

Currently in the process of clearing out my late parents' house, I've come across various bizarre things my mum accumulated from junk shops. These items now have their own box, which my brother labelled "curios". Set apart from the rubbish boxes, car boot sale boxes, and keepsake boxes, the curio pile is full of old household objects that may or may not be worth something.

Now we're faced with finding a dealer for advice. I'm reluctant to go down the Antiques Roadshow route in case I end up one of those people forced to smile unconvincingly when their 'treasure' turns out to be tat.

There are some gems though, among the flotsam and jetsam of our old family home. In a chest of drawers stuffed with playing cards, out-of-date passports, nutcrackers and half-burnt birthday candles, I came across short stories my mum wrote, Christmas cards my nephews made as infants, and my grandma's dog-eared scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about various family members, including a 1930s report about my dad winning a bonny baby competition.

Christie's can keep their cubist masterpieces. Some things really are priceless.