With rare collectable items, I quite often give them a run as a 3 day auction and price them up pretty well. Occasionally I jag some-one who is willing to pay. If that doesnt work I relist several days later as a BIN at the same price. This often draws out some-one who saw the auction, didnt buy, thought they missed out and they then snap it up whern it comes back onto the matket a few days later. The other effect of this stratedgy is that it picks up potential buyers who only search auctions. 

If all of that fails I leave the item at the high BIN price for perhaps a month. Once I get perhaps 8-10 watchers but no sale, I then reduce the price by around a third to a more realistic price, relying on ebays notification to watchers of the price reduction. This regularly draws buyers out within hours of reducing the price. It all works very well and quite often jags the higher price.

.