Your help was appreciated, I was just quite embarrassed.
Normally I would ask the seller to name their price for precisely this reason and I fear being suspected of intentionally trying to rip anyone off but prior to Nan, I'd made an attempt at the same two items with another seller who had requested that buyers NOT do that. I hadn't known about Useffle yet so this boxed me in a corner with the out of date price guide.
They seem to be inactive, it's been nearly a week and I've not heard from them. At this point I hope I don't. I erased the PM from my outbox but somehow I don't believe that would prevent it from being received.
The offer I made was a little under half my total, I'm creeping up on 7k, but these items are very worth it to me. So I'm SOL at the moment. I can not afford the legit asking price for the two items in question. That's why I withdrew.