This was the first one:
Dondorf, my favourite manufacturer, made cards in many sizes. The ones in their patience packs measure 29mm by 43mm and come in cute little boxes that don't tend to have survived the intervening decades very well. However, the boxes themselves were sometimes sold in much sturdier boxes, of which this is an example.
Inside are two packs of cards, one red-backed and one blue-backed. The cards are in fairly good condition, which is more than can be said for the the usual flimsy boxes in which they are stored. It's highly unusual to find the flimsy boxes still in the outer box, though. I haven't even seen an outer box for sale before. I suspect that most were thrown away because it was too hard to get the cards out of them.
Two complete packs of Dondorf patience cards in an outer box was too good an opportunity to miss up, so I put in a modest bid and won them.
It turned out that the seller lied. The packs are not complete. The blue-backed pack is missing AH, 5H, 6D, JD, KD and 4C; the red-backed pack is missing 10S.
I complained on eBay but didn't get a response. Most eBay sellers are up-front and honest, and if they've made a mistake at all (which they hardly ever do) then they'll admit it. This one just ignored me.
It wasn't a lot of money so I left a bad review and stopped there. It's still somewhat irritating though.