LPs at the Balderas Street Market

 The stalls on Balderas are one of my favorite places to go for records. It is possible to find just about anything here, and since they don't have to pay the overhead of keeping a store open, the prices are very cheap. It is possible to find anything from the most common junk for 10-20 pesos a record, lots of decent albums in the 40-100 peso range, and several rare records anywhere from 200-800 pesos.

 The condition of the LPs at most of the stalls is surprisingly good. While most people here who deal in records don't do much to protect the jackets, most of the vinyl I have bothered to look at and purchase at these stalls ranges from VG+ to NM.

 The genres of music you will find here is also pretty eclectic. The large majority of the records are classic rock, pop, and jazz, but you will also find a lot of latin music, classical, prog, blues, the occasional metal LP, and lots of other international records.

 On this particular day that I took the pictures, there were four different stalls to check out, sometimes there are more, sometimes less. Most of the sellers here are open Monday through Saturday from about 1pm to about 7pm, but don't show up right at 1pm and expect to find everything set up. It is usually better to go around 4 or 5pm, and you will find more people selling on Fridays and Saturdays than earlier in the week.

I picked up these three records on this trip to the street market, I'll get up some more of my finds from there at a later date. Testament's Souls of Black and Depeche Mode's Violator are both Mexican presses. I was extremely surprised to find an original Tomato press of Townes Van Zandt's Flyin' Shoes. This record is definitely one of my better finds here.

The Balderas Street Market (I just made up the name, not sure what else to call it) is located on Balderas in the Centro Histórico, between the streets Juarez and Artículo 123. The best way to get there is get off at Metro/Metrobus Juarez and walk north on Balderas, or exit Metrobus Hidalgo and walk south on Balderas. The record shop Discos de Ayer is also right across the street from these stalls.

UPDATE June 16, 2011: If you keep walking south on Balderas (on the west side of the street) all the way down to the Balderas Metrobus station, you will find a few more record stalls. I hadn't visited these stalls before, but it doesn't not seem like I was missing much. The stalls closer to Hidalgo Metrobus stop have a much more interesting selection.