What Are “Cover” and “Plus 1” Bids?

The best way to participate in our auctions is to attend in person. If you cannot attend, we invite you to participate via absentee bid, live bidding via phone, or with one of our online bidding partners (more information on each of these options here). For absentee and phone bidding, because of the thousands of bids that we must process just prior to an auction, it is almost inevitable that a few mistakes may occur. Your best protection is to attend the auction and bid in person, but if you cannot, please understand that this is not a perfect system at any auction house. To better serve our absentee bidders, we have what’s referred to as a “plus 1 bid”, and specifically for phone bidders we also offer the option of a “cover bid”.

Cover Bids
Cover bids are optional for phone bidders and are used just like an Absentee Bid in the event that we cannot get you on the phone when your lot goes up on the block. If you have registered to bid live on the phone and we are unable to reach you when your lot(s) hits the auction block, if you leave a cover bid then we will competitively execute your cover bid just as if it were an absentee bid. Your phone agent is the only person who will have this bid and will only use it to bid in the event that he/she cannot reach you. Assuming you are reached via telephone, they would not use your cover bid, but rely on your verbal instructions. For example, if we cannot reach you when your lot hits the block and you have left a cover bid of $1,000, if the bidding opens with a bid of $500 we would bid the next increment of $600 on your behalf. If there are no other bids you have successfully won the lot for $600. If there are more bids we will continue to bid on the item up to the total amount of your cover bid. Cover bids are entirely optional, but we recommend them for all our live phone bidders as protection against unforeseen circumstances that might cause us to not be able to reach you when your item is on the block.

“Plus 1” Bids
For bidders who are concerned that their lot might go for just one bid above their top limit, we offer a “plus one” bid. This works as follows: The top bid submitted might be $1,000, but not wishing to lose the lot for simply one more bid, the plus one bid allows our staff to bid one more time on your behalf. Generally a bid increment is 10%, so if you left a $1,000 bid plus 1 it would allow us to go $1,000 plus $100. If you said $1,000 plus 2 bids that would mean $1,000 plus $200. If you said $1,000 plus 3 bids that would mean $1,000 plus $300, and so forth. One example of a circumstance that occasionally arises with absentee bids is when someone in the audience bids exactly the amount which you specify is your limit. In such a case, we would not go one extra bid unless your bid sheet indicates plus one bid.