Sell your jewelry and get extra money to pay bills. Need cash? This may be the way...but be careful and try to avoid the pitfalls.

Beware of trying to sell to stores that offer the highest prices paid for your jewelry. The free appraisals are just an offer of what they hope you'd sell it for. Those that buy gold and buy jewelry want to make money.

There are options as to who will buy your gold and jewelry. Look for a good place to sell your jewelry. If you list it in a classified ad you control the price. You can also try an auction house.
Having documentation of the pieces is better as it creates the credibility that a gold or jewelry buyer may be concerned about. A bill of sale etc., is a good idea if you want to get a bit less they can see your original purchase price.
You might try Craigslist.

eBay might work but again if it is a very valuable piece I wouldn't list it without a starting price that I could accept as a final bid. Use insurance.

Whatever you choose to do get an independent appraiser if you think it is a piece of some real value.

Take the fear out of the buyer is an old saying that I like to go by. Think of whatever issues that they may be concerned with and address them beforehand.

To insure it you would consider that fine jewelry is appraised at  retail replacement value. that is very variable as the people are buying and selling at different price ranges from low wholesale to high retail.

Pawn shops are in business to make money by giving you cash for your items and after a limited period of time selling it back to you at interest. If you don't come back for the item within the period of time they can sell it to anybody. be sure of the agreement details before you sell anything to a pawn broker. They aren't in business to do you a favor and are seeking to make a buck for themselves.

Gold refiners that are cash buyers buy your gold at dramatically reduced prices. They pay scrap value on the gold or silver mountings and less than half of what they themselves would pay for precious stones. There usually isn't much interest in any stones other than diamonds.

Small diamonds usually can get you $1 to $4 per “point”. A point is 1/100 of a carat.

An antique watch can be worth quite a bit for it's value as an antique but not worth much at all for scrap.

I once bought a silver ring from a friend who needed money that day. I certainly didn't need it but he was a friend and I didn't haggle with him on the price. You may have some sympathetic friends or relatives.