Classical novae (CNe) are interacting binary systems whose outbursts are powered by a thermonuclear runaway in accreted material onto the surface of a white dwarf (WD). The secondary star in such systems fills its Roche lobe and material is transferred onto the WD primary star via an accretion disk. Recurrent novae (RNe) show many similarities to CNe, but have had more than one recorded outburst. RNe play an important role as one of the suspected progenitor systems of Type Ia supernovae, which are used as primary distance indicators in cosmology. Thus, it is important to investigate the nature of their central binary systems to determine the relation between the parameters of the central system and the outburst type, and finally ascertain the population of novae that might be available to give rise to the progenitors of Type Ia SNe. A low outburst amplitude is adopted as a criterion that may help distinguish RNe from CNe and was therefore used to select targets for observations from ground-based observatories including the Liverpool Telescope and the Southern African Large Telescope as well as the full-sky space-based archive of the Solar Mass Ejection Imager (SMEI). We found that at least four objects currently classified as CNe are possibly RNe candidates based on their quiescent spectra. We also searched the SMEI archive for additional outbursts of bright CNe that might otherwise have been missed but did not find a conclusive example.