Do not get me started on profanity with propulsion around..
I'm just amused how 1000 coins can go missing. So much so that I'll taint my computer with your xc blockchain to try to sort it out. No trolling from me.

OK, turns out my active wallet.dat file was from an old backup, before the transaction(s) in question took place (I think).
A restore of the full ...\appdata\... folder from a recent version has fixed my woes.
Thanks for the rapid help from dev et al, turns out I'm stupid, maybe something can be learned from this (if nothing else keep your backups up to date & organized

).
Good job dude. It did seem impossible; glad it worked out for you.