Where do you find affordable crystals that aren’t manufactured? And how do you tell if they’re real or not?

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Locally we have a shop that specialises in rocks and fossils that is more affordable than most, but you really need to shop around.

Citrine is heat affected amethyst, whether natural or as part of a manufacturing process. A lot of the shiny rainbow aura quartz looks heat affected/fake to me, and some crystals just look like they've been dunked in blue or pink or yellow etc and they are very uneven and sad looking.

I like to see a crystal in real life and touch it before I buy it. And even then I once bought a clear quartz that I'm sure is just glass. Sometimes it is hard to tell what you are getting, but if I get some kind of sensation from holding it, I like to think what I'm holding is genuine.

Im fortunate to have two shops within driving distance. ArtesandCraft.com ships worldwide, and they travel all over to source crystals and stones for their shop.

I have bought some crystals on etsy. They were not manufactured. Although I'm not sure what you mean by that.
Generally it's more about the type of crystal. Some crystals are OBVIOUSLY been altered. Certain colors, appearances, etc... are not natural.
Other things are always manufactured because the type of crystal has become extremely rare. Turquoise for example is now mostly howlite that has been dyed blue. Real turquoise has been very expensive and impossible to get without paying a fortune for it.
Very few crystals are manufactured as in grown in a laboratory. I have yet to come across people who don't make it know that their crystals are lab made. I think the one exception is moldavite because it is meteoric glass. Thus people take regular green glass and mess it up a bit and call it moldavite. I would be suspicious of all moldavite in general. It's very rare and thus expensive, so people like to fake it to make money.
Also some people want lab grown crystals because they see current mining operations as bad for the environment and exploitative of workers. So there is a demand for lab grown crystals and people wanting to know if a crystal is grown in a lab.
Another key example of lab grown crystals is that they are perfect. Zero flaws, inclusions, etc. Only natural crystals have flaws, inclusions, etc.. So if a crystal looks to perfect online and it doesn't say lab made, it may still be lab made.
This means that certain crystals which are made from inclusions or known for flaws can't be made in a lab.

My favorite (besides supporting my local shop) is WorldIncenseStore on Etsy. I've ordered several times, great prices & quality for real. I usually use their crystals for my candlemaking but they have a huge variety.

Just a few general tips to tell if your crystals are legit: they're usually cold to touch (even if some get warm easily and quickly just by having them in your hands); they're heavier than some piece of plastic/glass; they're NEVER homogeneous.

When you're observing a crystal, pay notice to the little fractures, the hues (usually, crystals aren't of a neon/too bright color), and all of the imperfections.

Regarding that, do some research on the specific crystal you want to buy, about the colors it may present, the the specific characteristics and the peculiarities!

There’s a lot of websites who are out of Arizona which is the Mecca of gemstones and they get most of their crystals from sellers who go there for the gem and mineral fair that happens every year. Most of the stones they sell come directly from Brazil or Madagascar.

I buy a lot of crystals on Etsy from the store ilovelotus and they seem legit and affordable.

You can see kid there are any gem shows near you. Also, do research and learn what it looks like when a crystal has been enhanced. Heat treated citrine will be darker and more orangey than natural citrine, which is usually a pale, translucent yellow.

I bought a whole bunch of clear quartz for cleansing off amazon and they've worked great. I even carried one of them with me every day when my husband was in the hospital recently and used it as a worry stone. It absolutely calmed me and gave me clarity.

It's pretty hard to verify in this day and age whether crystals are "legitimate." And a lot of etsy sellers are just reselling stuff they got from the same mass producers the shops on amazon get their supplies from. If you want affordable, I'd worry less about the "purity," ritually cleanse them before use in any spells (I set mine out under a full moon every month), and even carry one of them on your person to really attune them to your personal vibrations.

I'm fortunate to be friends with a lady on fb who sells crystals, stones etc at extremely reasonable prices. Her page is Atlantis Flew Away. She's very careful about her stuff and I've never gotten fake crystals or stones from her. Personally, I won't buy anything I haven't put my hands on unless I know the person I'm buying from. I need to feel whatever it is I'm wanting so I can find the right one for me. As for fakes, it's easy to do the research so you can make sure you can spot the differences.

It used to be I kept myself fully stocked on crystals just by good old fashioned rock hounding. I’d see rock beds or rock gardens in my travels, took the chance and poked around, found a great amount of Natural Quartz, and quality sized pieces too. If anything it’s a good way to supplement your purchases.

Second hand I’ve found is good!

Are you near a college or geology/natural museum?  They love talking about rocks!  If you go in and talk rocks, ask them about identification keys and porcelain tile tests.  Cheap and effective! 

My local store has online and their pieces are amazing and sourced responsibly all over the globe. Raven and Willow Botanica

Etsy used to be my go-to, but it's been flooded with fakes over the years. Metaphysical shops in your town are good if you are the type of person who likes to see what stone you're drawn to. I've also found incredible steals at antique stores. In fact, if anyone in this post lives in Tucson, Arizona, I found a selenite fireplace log for $150 in one of the antique malls that was too heavy for me to take on the plane so I had to pass 😭

If you're down for online shopping, I love https://therockspace.com.

Another good tip is an established seller will list where the stone was sourced from.

Hold the crystal to your cheek or forehead. If it’s cold then it’s real stone. If it warms immediately to your temperature it’s plastic.

I tend to collect crystals and use them in my practice less for the potential properties humans place on them and more for connecting with arcane earth energy. I also rock tumble and use crystals in oddity pieces for my small biz. Just a preface cuz that influences my preference for collector pieces, raw minerals, and labeled tumbles instead of carvings, dyed, or heat-treated pieces, so that does inform my opinions, ethics and purchases.

I look for shops/sites that focus on minerals, gem specimens, and rock tumbling. I typically avoid businesses that are based around crystal healing, for the sole fact that they're much less likely to have things properly labeled, often unable to provide locations or sources of their materials, and tend to upcharge items they know people will pay more for the idea of a spiritual object that will help them regardless of what the material is actually worth. They will also upcharge for egregiously fake materials, such as taking green glass and calling it green obsidian that balances your heart chakra. My favs are V-Rock and Fantasia Mining, though I'm lucky enough to be able to visit both in person.

A couple basic ways you can tell if a mineral is actually a naturally-formed rock vs plastic, resin, or a dyed material: -The hardness test, based off Mohs hardness scale. You can look up the hardness of the crystal you're testing, say a quartz crystal ball. They're sometimes faked with glass so it's an easy example. Quartz has a hardness of about 7.5, glass is about 5. So to test the crystal ball, you'd try to scratch it with a mineral you know is harder than glass, like amethyst which is about a 7. If you can't scratch the crystal ball, then you know the hardness is equal to or greater than the amethyst, indicating it's likely quartz.

-The heat test. Most naturally occurring minerals don't hold heat for long and do not burn, whereas something man-made like plastic will stay hot & scorch. Do this by holding your crystal with tongs and heat it up for 5-10 seconds. If it burns black, but wipes off cleanly, it's most likely real.

The last simple test I use is to check for dyed minerals. Agate is often dyed bright blues and pinks, for an example. Most dyes are alcohol-solvable, so soaking them in isopropyl alcohol for a short period and rubbing them with a cotton pad is a good way to do this.

Local shops

If the color is too bright or more concentrated in the nooks añd crannies, it's likely dyed, that's one of the most common fakes you'll find. Pretty easily avoided though since the difference is pretty clear. 

Then there's the  heat treated amethyst and smoky quartz  in order to produce citrine, people have mimicked the process that creates natural citrine, but as one can expect, it's not as thorough, the color isn't even on heat treated varieties ,usually creating an ombre effect from the lovely golden color being present in the area the heat was most concentrated to white on the area farthest from the heat. 

The most problematic thing I see as far as fakes go is warehouses trying to market foms of calcite as quartz , but generally a knowledgeable dealer ill have already weeded those out for you. But to be safe you could always carry a small mirror that you don't care about with you , calcite is too soft to scratch glass

Depending on where you live some crystals and minerals can be found in nature for free.

If you're able to go to a park or forest look around and trust your intuition. Ask first if you can take what you find and say thank you. And don't overdo it

Join a local rockhound group. You will be amazed at what the "pros" think are unimportant specimens are actually exactly what folks wanting metaphysical rocks (the aspects given for stones by some) would enjoy. I have a ton of crystals from the past 3 decades. Also chk out estate sales of older people. Crystals from the way back times are what you can bank on as being unaltered by humans wanting a fast buck.

I got mine off tiktok but the vendors I used no longer are around unfortunately.

You can tell if they are real by putting the flame from a torch lighter to it.

Etsy's a good start. Check reviews and ask questions before buying. It's trial and error, but you'll get the hang of it!

Honestly I tumble my own. I'm looking into getting more tools to do some carving of raw stones. There's a lot of places that are reputable for selling the raw stones and ore, but by nature of being raw, they aren't pretty. Yet.

There's a shop an hour away from me and they always bring in the real crystals for me to trust. For testing each crystal is different, some can be used for scratch tests. There's also sunlight, salt, and testing the coolness and warmth from plastic to real crystal.

As soon as I got into rocks/crystals, it was clear what was fake and what wasn’t. Fake citrine is common but almost always presented as a brown cluster on top of a solid dirty white/grey base. Real citrine is almost always a full Amber/rusty orange/champagne color, and presented as points or palm stones. Quartz and rose quartz is so abundant and cheap, little reason to fake it. Amethyst is almost always dirty, cracked, lots of inclusions. A perfect purple/lavender amethyst tower wouldn’t be very cheap, so if you see one and it looks to perfect and is cheap, it might be glass. Etsy doesn’t have as much fake stuff as you’d think. With other popular stones, look into how they’re normally presented and if they have a flash, you’ll be able to tell what’s fake. Angel aura quartz is coated/treated, but still quartz underneath. It’s often a larger, Rough point. If it’s perfect looking and completely translucent, it might be glass. Remember that some tumbles are polished, some are not. The shinyness doesn’t always mean it’s fake. A tourmaline palm stone will look lustery but loose tourmaline can look rough and matte.

Your options are pretty much:
Inexpensive and manufactured.

Inexpensive, dynamited out of the side of a hill and picked up by workers in inhumane, underpayed conditions.

Expensive.

Find them yourself in nature.

I have this link that's been very helpful for finding ethically sourced crystals online:

https://www.purewow.com/wellness/where-to-buy-crystals-online

It has links to where you can get ethically sourced rough and tumbled crystals, budget-friendly crystals, even Native-owned businesses for legitimate and ethically sourced turquoise if you're interested. Hope this helps!

If you have Instagram thestonequeen is where I’ve been buying my crystals lately. Definitely has some that are in the thousands, but until last night I hadn’t bought anything over $70 and I’ve bought A LOT. Last night I bought my Mother’s Day gift from my husband so that one doesn’t totally count but it was $175….its live sale format so if that isn’t your thing she does have a website but not everything gets listed as it usually sells in the live.

I ordered a ring for Etsy and it turned out to be fake they didn't refund my money either after the seller said they would and they did nothing about it so check the business reviews before you purchase anything and magic. Com never Shipp me my books for months it took a while to get my money back

Go to rock and mineral shows in your area. The sellers usually have so.e good stuff and a lot of knowledge. 

ebay!

Keep in mind that you also don't need them. I just mostly don't use them--I have a few from thirty years ago (anyone else old and remember those nature stores in malls?), and some rocks I found out in the world, but I haven't bought a crystal in ages. Herbs and oils and candles are more my speed.

raven & crone

Not sure of where you reside but shopping locally always is the way to go. Most name-brand stores sell rocks/minerals that are similar to crystals and sell for much higher. I always do a test by holding the crystal in my hand before buying- if it's cool to touch then it's real. Fake crystals will be warm or have no temperature at all. Key words like "botanica" "spiritual shop" and "metaphysical shop" on Google Maps can help narrow down your search. Good luck!

Even if the crystal has been smelted it doesn't change the structure of the cells, so if you get a manufactured crystal that is still quartz, then you're good, temu has cheap stones too.

If their cheap does that mean that they have been mined ethically? Something to consider

I’ve never found any illegitimate crystal websites or shops ? Where are you looking? I have bought off Etsy too. I always stick to Australian sellers, local wholesalers and websites. I read reviews and check them out on Facebook/insta first.

You can grow your own. My gf and I do that, they sell sets to start on Amazon