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I know that certain stones are used in a number of spells, so I have a few questions.

1) What's a good price range for stones like quartz, agate, turquoise and other stones that are commonly used? There's a store downtown that sells crystals, but I have a feeling they'll be overpriced there. So I'd just like to know a general price range so I can have a good idea of what I should be paying vs. what they want for it, so if it's too much I'll look elsewhere.

2) What kind of crystals do you use and find most effective, if any? I know they're all supposed to have different properties, but I'm just curious which ones people like best and get the most use out of.

Hmm, it sounds like most of the shops I checked out had the stones overpriced, then. I'll keep looking around to see if I can find something more reasonable.
Yeah, quartz is what I'm mainly looking for, and amethyst, citrine and sapphire would be nice too (though those will be more expensive I'm sure). I have some peridot jewelry since it's my birthstone, so I may be able to use that too. I used to have a lot of crystals when I was younger, but I have no idea where they are now, I wish I had kept some.
Thanks for your help!

Amethyst is a type of quartz stone actually. Citrine and Amethyst are very common stones and will be around the same price as the quartz stones will be. Turquois stones will range from about the same as quartz to moderately more than. Sapphire will be a lot more expensive though. Like CilverCyanide said the price for stones is dependent on size mostly. They do tend to range from around .50 cents to a couple of dollars for small polished pieces and little spear shaped wand like ones. Though the spheres will tend to cost you around $20-60. There are also geodes that cost more as well.

On my altar there is a quartz geode and an amethyst one. I also use hematite, fluorite, kyanite and calcite on a regular basis.

Thanks for your help. I figured sapphire would be most expensive, but I wasn't sure about amethyst or citrine though, so I'm glad I can get ahold of those. I found a few reasonably priced pendants recently (rose quartz, tiger-eye, and some others I can't remember now) so I might buy a couple of those once I get paid.

if you go to certain shops, then you can get really good prices. if you ever go to monterey, they have a really good shop that sells some really nice stones for very low prices. also, small shops near state parks also have some pretty good prices. i usually use either quartz or amethyst in rituals.

I've gotten a lot of good stones online, through Ebay sometimes. I got a handful of uncut citrine pieces for around 5 dollars and i got a cut sapphire for less than that. I actually wanted an uncut gem but they sent me a cut one by mistake.