Here's what happened.

After placing my bid I received a few emails from a few historians in Europe wishing me luck while telling me they were going to stay away from the auction knowing that this was one of those "once-in-a-lifetime finds" which was completely unknown (see 1894 newspaper article below from ChipGuide) to anyone in the hobby, anywhere. These were collectors who have world-class collections of the rarest-of-the-rare collections of which I have been adding on to since 1992... So, at that point I figured this is going to be a laydown and I will simply walk away with it and thank everyone later on in my special, skilled way of finding them more rare material from their countries. Then, someone pops in whom I was not able to detect; not noticing their bidding technique which, really didn't matter too much since I was prepared to walk with both of these at any cost. Then, I get an email from Europe from one of the collectors who were watching the auction and informed that the person bidding me up lived within walking distance of the seller... which I could have cared less knowing what I was capable of doing. I kept bidding and bidding like there was no tomorrow. Took a break... and upon returning I see all bids had either been retracted by the bidders or someone was able to show eBay exactly what was going on and I walked with both pieces paying very little.

You can see that the author of the article thought that the 500 and 1000 were the highest denominations way back then...