First time seller on Ebay- advice please

[BookWitch]

My mum has asked me to sell a large and high value item on Ebay for her.
It's highly collectible and worth about 8k. It was my dad's (he died three years ago) and though she is reasonably fond of it, she wants to sell it and split the money between the five grandchildren.
I am happy to help her, but I have never sold on Ebay (only bought).
Can I ask some of you experts a few questions?

I have looked through Ebay selling guides and I am still a bit confused.
How much % will we be charged to sell something (assuming we get 8K). Is the charge different if we do a Buy it Now or an Auction?

Is it better to have a reserve or a Starting bid?

I am so worried about being scammed. Is it best to use Paypal for payment? Is there an additional Paypal charge (as well as the listing fee?) I've viewed similar items and lots of them say cash on delivery. I don't want my mum with that amount of cash in the house (Obviously).

I have several similar items on watch at the moment, and I know our price is about right.

It's at mum's and too big to move to my place, plus I work. We are going to put collection by buyer or buyer to arrange transport, but we know we'll have chancers ask us to deliver. We live quite rurally.

Any words of wisdom? I am really nervous about this, mainly because you hear horror stories about being scammed, and it's my late dad's, I'd be heartbroken. Dad would be happy about it being sold for the grandchildren, but I need to get it right.

Any advice? I'd be very grateful.

Personally speaking I’m not sure that I would risk first time selling for something of this sort of value. I suggest you contact a local auctioneers for a valuation. If they do come up with a similar figure I think you would be much safer going down that path rather than EBay. Fees will not be that different after EBay & PayPal costs are taken into account.

I agree with Bouldghirl. Good luck.

I agree with the above too - if your first sale is a high value item you are likely to be targeted by scammers, this happened to me when trying to sell my Mac. Honestly I would look for other routes to sell it first. eBay works best for high volume low value stuff. Good luck.

I agree with the above posters.

Get a few valuations from reputable local auction houses and go from there.

I'm an experienced ebay seller and no way would I risk selling such a high value item on there!

Don’t sell it on eBay. Try contacting a local auction house.

Thanks for your advice, time to rethink and approach an auction site.
I'm glad I asked

Agree, I would never list anything on Ebay for more than about £75.00.

Agree with previous posters. Anything high value will attract scammers. Good luck selling it tho.

I've sold stuff up to £500 value on Ebay (no regrets or problems).

Isn't there a way to get a fixed value sale, so you don't have to pay 10% in Ebay fees? I know they do that for cars. Something like a £100 limit applies. I would not want to pay Ebay £800. Can you share what the item is?

If you do sell on ebay wait for a £1 fee listing day, ie you only pay £1 if it sells not 10%. They are about every 2 weeks usually starting on Sunday to Monday or Friday-Monday. They are advertised on the home page.