I understand what you mean. You're ready to sell it but you don't want to let it go at too cheap a price, which is always a slight risk with auctioning.
My advice would be to decide how much you are willing to sell it for and set that as a reserve price. If it doesn't reach your reserve, you still have your set, and you will be able to tell how much people are willing to pay by whatever price the auction reaches. Reserve auctions cost a bit more to list, but it's a good way to determine current market value without selling at a price you're not happy with.
If the set is in its original box, complete, and in mint condition, that would definitely increase its value to a collector. Use lots of clear photos for the listing and an accurate description and that will give potential buyers the confidence to bid the maximum amount. If you can't get all the keywords into the auction title, consider adding a subtitle. There are other ways to promote the listing. For an extra fee, you can maximise hits by using a featured listing which will place your auction always at the top of the search results. (I often ignore those when I search, so I don't know if it's worth bothering with that.)
Clearly state shipping costs and offer insurance if possible, especially on larger valuable items. This helps people to budget since they can work out beforehand whatever they are willing to pay in total rather than it being left as a grey area.
Apparently, there are also certain days of the week and times of day for listing which achieve better results than others. This is a few years out of date, but it looks like Sunday was consistently at the top of survey results:
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y203/m03/abu0091/s03That doesn't include holidays. It's always best to avoid having your auction end on a big holiday such as Thansgiving or Christmas for obvious reasons.
As for planning the end time of the auction, I found this tip on another page:
"Time your auction so that it ends during peak buying times. If you live in the Eastern Time Zone, list your auction between 9pm-11pm, Central Time Zone list between 8-10pm, Mountain Time Zone between 7-9pm, and for the Pacific Time Zone list between 6-8pm. Thus, this will give you the biggest exposure at the end of your auction. If your auction ends at 2 in the morning, there won t be to many people placing a bid. The debate is out as to what day your auction should end on. Some sellers report that Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are best. Other sellers report that Saturday and Sunday are best. Try experimenting with this to see what works best for your auctions."
(source: http://www.powerhomebiz.com/vol150/ebay.htm)Good luck!
