shellfish

Ok – At last I’ve worked it out thanks to you and a bit of goggling!

I did a combination of your code and using the wp smart sort to sort numerically by custom field [lot_number]

In case this helps anyone else:

<?php

if (!$paged = get_query_var('paged')) {
   if (!$paged = get_query_var('page')) {
      $paged = 1;
   }
}
$args = array(
   'cat' => 3,
   'paged' => $paged,
);
query_posts($args);

?>

<!-- Start the Loop. -->

<?php

 if (have_posts()) : 

?>

		<?php

 while (have_posts()) : the_post(); 

?>

	<?php $lotnum = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'lot_number', true); ?>

			<?php the_title(); ?>

				<div class="entry">
					<?php the_content(); ?>
<li><em>Lot Number:</em> <?php echo $lotnum; ?></li>

				</div>

			</div>

		<?php endwhile; ?>

<?php if(function_exists('wp_paginate')) {
    wp_paginate();
} ?>

	<?php else : ?>

		<h2 class="center">Not Found</h2>
		<p class="center">Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn't here.</p>
		<?php get_search_form(); ?>

	<?php endif; ?>

[note – i’ve taken out the other custom fields for now]

Thanks for your help.

Hey,
Thanks for response. Tried the code and must be doing something wrong as still doesn’t sort them in the right order. My code now looks like this:

<!-- Start the Loop. -->
<?php
if (!$paged = get_query_var('paged')) {
   if (!$paged = get_query_var('page')) {
      $paged = 1;
   }
}
$args = array(
   'cat' => 3,
   'meta_key' => 'lot_number',
   'orderby' => 'meta_value_num',
   'paged' => $paged,
);
query_posts($args);
?>
<?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();

// set up variables to hold custom field entries.
$subtitle = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'subtitle', true);
$lotnum = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'lot_number', true);
$description = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'description', true);
$estimate = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'estimate', true);
 $auctiondate = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'auction_date', true);
$image = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'image', true);

?>

 <!-- Display the Post's Content in a div box. -->

<div class="product-box">
<ul>

<li class="title">Title: <?php the_title();?></li>
<li class="subtitle"><em>Subtitle:</em> <?php echo $subtitle; ?></li>

<!-- Display our Custom Field -->
<li><em>Lot Number:</em> <?php echo $lotnum; ?></li>
<li><em>Description:</em> <?php echo $description; ?></li>
<li><em>Guide Price:</em> <?php echo $estimate; ?>  </li>
<li><em>Auction Date:</em> <?php echo $auctiondate; ?></li>
<li><?php echo $image; ?></li>
<li class="galleryset"><?php the_content();?></li>
</ul>
</div> <!-- /product box --><br/>
 <!-- Stop The Loop (but note the "else:" - see next line). -->
 <?php endwhile; else: ?>

 <!-- The very first "if" tested to see if there were any Posts to -->
 <!-- display.  This "else" part tells what do if there weren't any. -->
 <p>Our next auction catalogue will be published here shortly - please visit again soon</p>

Any ideas?
Thanks :0)

That makes sense…thanks for the link!