What's the best way to sell jewelry?

We’ve got a bunch of jewelry we need to get rid of. It varies from cheap stuff to decent stuff, but I don’t know if there’s any really expensive stuff or not at this point. What do you think is the way to get the most money for it?

There are a few watches, and I think those would go well on Ebay because they have an identifiable brand name and all. But what about things like rings, earrings, necklaces or bracelets? Ebay doesn’t seem like a good idea because there are no brand names (that I know of) for people to search for, and no way for them to know if the stuff is real or not. Also, there probably are too many items for us to want to do a separate auction for each one.

Should we just take it into a jeweler? That seems like a relatively safe, reliable way to sell it, but of course the jeweler will get a good cut of it. Am I likely to be able to sell everything that way? There are also places right now that take jewelry and melt it down for the gold or silver, but it seems like a waste to take finished products and melt them down to scrap.