Record stores in Sacramento

Record shops reward the patient digger. Sacramento, CA has 7 mapped right now. That's 7 record shops mapped around Sacramento. 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 Sacramento (within about 40 km), built from OpenStreetMap's community-maintained data. Names you'll run into include Music Exchange and Phono Select Records, plus Watermelon Music. If a record shop's missing from Sacramento's list, it probably just hasn't been mapped yet.

The Sacramento record lineup

7 mapped within about 40 km:

What the map tells us about record stores in Sacramento

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

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

Most of the record stores in Sacramento list a phone number. Useful for asking what's just come into the used bins.

The Sacramento record crawl

Plot these on a map and the day plans itself: Music Exchange on 1537 Howe Ave, Phono Select Records, Watermelon Music on 1970 West Covell Boulevard, Armadillo Music on 207 F Street, Medium Rare Records & Collectibles, The Nicholson Music Company, and The Audio Nerd on 3700 East Midas Avenue. That's 7 stops on the Sacramento record crawl.

Record digging tips for Sacramento

How the regulars work Sacramento's bins:

• Ask to play it at Music Exchange. Good shops have turntables for exactly this. If they won't let you listen, that's information too.
• Check the bargain wall rhythm at Phono Select Records. Shops restock the cheap sections on cycles. Ask when — that's when the fresh bargains land.
• Learn to spot reissues. Reissues are cheaper and often sound great. Originals cost more for the history. Know which you're paying for.
• Don't skip the 45s. The singles boxes get less traffic and hide great finds. B-sides are the deep cuts of record shopping.

Good to know

We searched about 40 km around Sacramento — 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 Sacramento can take a while to appear. The 7 above are only as current as the community map. A record store that's shut, or a new one nobody's added yet, gets fixed with a single OpenStreetMap edit.

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 7 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.