cups and saucers

I love drinking tea. I love having a friend come over to drink tea and have a little snack. Nevertheless, my current lifestyle has no place for pretty teacups with matching saucers and little cake plates, all in the same china pattern. Even when I had the energy to entertain more often or more vigorously, that meant having people over more often to drink tea from big pottery mugs, with something indelicate like banana bread alongside. I don't know if it's just me (and the people I mostly socialize with) or if this is yet another way in which the world has changed since my grandparents were given this tea set.

So. I have no further use for the tea set that was sitting in a high cupboard of my old apartment, and in a low box of my new one. It's really very pretty, and I'm sure *somebody* would like it, probably even like it enough to pay a significant amount of money for it. Looking at similar things on Ebay, individual cup+saucer settings seem to be listed for $8-15. It's not at all clear to me if people buy those cups and saucers listed for $10. (I refuse to believe anybody will buy the set of 5 mismatched teacups priced at $1,650.00. That's some kind of a joke I don't get.)

There are 8 teacups, 8 saucers, a sugar bowl, and a creamer. Should this be listed as one big package deal? Nine -- with one for each tea-drinker, and one for the stuff in the middle of the table? Three -- two sets of 4, and one for the stuff in the middle of the table? I'd rather not list many times to sell each piece, fumbling around figuring out stuff that other people already know. (Ebay's idea of helping me sell more effectively consists of encouraging me to post things for sale repeatedly after they don't sell, advising me to lower prices, and suggesting I offer free shipping. Taken together, I could lose money on each sale.)