Secondhand Record Shop Near Me in Tiong Bahru: Ronggeng Records

Ronggeng Records opens at 3 pm from Wednesday to Saturday and stays open until 9 pm, so this secondhand record shop near me is really an evening stop. Ronggeng Records, at 30 Seng Poh Road, #01-79 Tiong Bahru Market, Singapore 168898, describes itself in three phrases: music shop, Asia rarities, vintage gear. On Sunday it keeps longer daytime hours, from 10:30 am to 8 pm, and it does not open on Monday or Tuesday.

Most record shops in Singapore sit in malls or shophouses. Ronggeng is a numbered unit inside Tiong Bahru Market, the NEA-run building on Seng Poh Road that has a wet market downstairs and a cooked-food centre on the upper level. The #01 prefix tells you it is on the ground floor, so you will not find it among the hawker stalls serving lunch upstairs.

A Time Out Singapore video put the approach simply: follow the music along Kim Cheng Street and you will find your way to the stall. That is still the easiest way in. Walk the Kim Cheng Street side of the building, listen for whatever is spinning on the counter turntable, and look for crates stacked toward the corridor. Because the unit is small, two or three diggers standing shoulder to shoulder already count as a crowd.

The owner, Shahrem, told Time Out Singapore he played keyboards in a rock band called YingYang in the 1980s. That background shapes the stock. He talks about analogue records as having a sound that cannot be replicated, and he explained that some of the English and Hong Kong albums in his bins were recorded right here in Singapore at Lion Studios, a detail most visitors do not expect.

In a December 2025 interview with Hype Singapore he described the business in one line: he is not selling a commercial product but memories and nostalgia. He also said his buyers come from Singapore, Japan, Indonesia and even Europe. In practice that means the person at the counter has spent decades inside this music, so asking about a singer or a label usually gets you a story along with the record.

Time Out's listing sums up the range as rock and roll through elusive Southeast Asian collectives and cherished Mandarin classics. The regional section is the reason to come. Singapore, Malaysian and Indonesian bands of the 1960s pressed small runs that rarely surface in Western shops, and a stall named after ronggeng, the Malay folk dance and its music, is built around exactly that corner of history.

Mandarin pop sits alongside the Malay and Indonesian records, so a parent or grandparent looking for a song from their youth has a real chance here. Rock and roll and Western pop fill out the rest. Do not expect a tidy alphabetical system like a big chain store. Plan to flip whole crates, and if you are after something specific, name the artist and rough decade before you start digging.

Vintage gear is the third word in the shop's own description, and it is not an afterthought. Alongside the records the stall shows older audio equipment, the kind of decks and players that collectors in Singapore usually hunt for on resale listings. Seeing a machine in person beats buying blind online, because you can look at the casing, the knobs and the cables before you commit.

If a turntable or tape deck catches your eye, ask whether it can be played on the spot, and bring one of your own records so you can hear a familiar track through it. Older equipment varies a lot from unit to unit, so judge each piece on its own. Be honest about your setup at home too. A rare deck is a poor buy if you have no amplifier or speakers to run it.

The 3 pm weekday opening is the most important fact to plan around. If you arrive at Tiong Bahru Market in the morning for breakfast, as many visitors do, the shutter will still be down. Go upstairs for an early dinner around 6 pm, then come down to the stall afterward. A Wednesday or Thursday evening is the quietest choice for anyone who wants time at the crates without someone waiting behind them.

Sunday is the only day you can browse in daylight, since the stall opens at 10:30 am and closes at 8 pm. It also brings the heaviest weekend foot traffic through the estate. If the unit is already full when you arrive, do not hover at the entrance. Take a lap around the market, buy a drink upstairs and come back in twenty minutes, by which point the crowd has usually thinned.

Treat every sleeve as a one-off, because in the regional section many of them are. Lift records out by the edges, slide them back into the same slot, and leave a crate as you found it so the next person can follow its order. Ask before you pull a disc out of its inner sleeve to look at the vinyl. Older cardboard covers tear easily in Singapore humidity, so keep drinks and hawker food well away from the bins.

Ronggeng does not publish prices online, and rare pressings are priced one by one rather than by a flat crate rate. Ask the price at the counter before you get attached to a record, and do not expect the cheap bargain bins of a big warehouse. If you are browsing with a budget in mind, say so early. Shahrem can then steer you toward the shelves that match it rather than the rarest items.

The stall sits at the edge of one of Singapore's oldest public housing estates. The curved, white walk-up blocks around Seng Poh Road, Eng Hoon Street and Yong Siak Street were built by the Singapore Improvement Trust before the war, and their rounded balconies and spiral back stairs reward a slow loop on foot. A Saturday or Sunday walk lines up well with the shop's opening hours.

From the market, cross toward Eng Hoon Street to see Qi Tian Gong, the small temple dedicated to the Monkey God, then drift down Yong Siak Street past the cafes and independent shops. The loop takes well under an hour. Do the walk first and leave the record stall for last, so you are not carrying a bag of fragile sleeves around the estate in the tropical heat.

Address: Ronggeng Records, at 30 Seng Poh Road, #01-79 Tiong Bahru Market, Singapore 168898. Hours from the shop's own profile: Wednesday 3 pm to 9 pm, Thursday 3 pm to 9 pm, Friday 3 pm to 9 pm, Saturday 3 pm to 9 pm, Sunday 10:30 am to 8 pm, and closed Monday and Tuesday. The shop posts new arrivals on Instagram and Threads under the handle ronggengrecords, which is the place to see recent stock.

Getting there: Tiong Bahru MRT station on the East-West Line is the closest stop, and the walk to the market takes you through the estate itself. Bring a sturdy tote or a flat record bag, since the stall is not set up for heavy packaging. If you plan to buy several LPs, carry them flat rather than upright so the corners stay intact on the trip home.