Record stores in Reykjavik

Record shops reward the patient digger. Reykjavik, Capital Region has 8 mapped right now. That's 8 record shops mapped around Reykjavik. Every shop grades and prices differently, so the same record can be a bargain in one and a splurge in another — dig everywhere. Check the grading before you pay — a visual grade and a play grade are two different things.

This guide covers every record store we could verify in and around Reykjavik (within about 40 km), built from OpenStreetMap's community-maintained data. Names you'll run into include Lucky Records and Hljómsýn, plus 12 Tónar. If a record shop's missing from Reykjavik's list, it probably just hasn't been mapped yet.

The Reykjavik record lineup

8 mapped within about 40 km:

What the map tells us about record stores in Reykjavik

7 of the 8 list their opening hours on the map, which is genuinely useful — record shops keep shop hours, so the listed times are usually reliable.

4 have websites listed. Worth a look for new-arrival posts and want-list services.

The Reykjavik record crawl

Making a day of it in Reykjavik? Work this order: Lucky Records on 10 Rauðarárstígur, Hljómsýn on 38 Ármúli, 12 Tónar on 15 Skólavörðustígur, Reykjavik Record Shop, Geisladiskabúð Valda, Smekkleysa on 32 Hverfisgata, Plötubúðin.is, and Alda Music Plötubúð on 7 Eyjarslóð. That's the record crawl in one sensible loop, no backtracking.

Record digging tips for Reykjavik

How the regulars work Reykjavik's bins:

• Check for warps in the shop at Lucky Records. Hold the record at eye level and sight along it. Warps that look minor at home look obvious in the store.
• Handle records properly in the shop at Hljómsýn. By the edges, never the grooves. Shops notice, and so do the records.
• Check the dead wax. The runout groove holds matrix numbers that identify pressings. Collectors live by these; a quick phone search settles it.
• Hit the new-arrivals bin first. That's where fresh stock lands before anyone else sees it. The good stuff rarely survives the week.

Good to know

We searched about 40 km around Reykjavik — that covers the town itself plus the surrounding communities you'd reasonably drive to. Listings come from OpenStreetMap, mapped by local volunteers, so a brand-new record store in Reykjavik can take a while to appear. If you spot one of the 8 that's closed, or a great record store we missed, the fix is to update the map itself — that's where this guide reads from.

We don't list prices or stock — both change by the day. What we list is the where: real shops, verified by real mappers.

If you run one of the 8 listed here and something's wrong — a closure, a move, new hours — the fix is the same: update the shop on OpenStreetMap and the correction flows through to this page on the next daily refresh.