Card Shops In Japan: Quad Sports

Please check my "Card Shops in Japan" page before planning a trip to this store to verify that it's still where it was when I visited.

Quad Sports is probably my favorite card shop in Japan.  I've visited it four times which is the most I've visited any store (although that's only once more than Coletre and Mint Ikebukuro).  It's located in Takadanobaba in Tokyo, just two stops south of Ikebukuro and two stations north of Shinjuku on the Yamanote line.

Quad Sports had been on the second floor of the NT Building on Waseda Dori across the street from an elementary school but they moved during my trip to Japan.  Their new location is in a large building closer to Takadanobaba Station and across the street from their old location.  Here's a photo of their new building:

There's an opening leading to a staircase and an elevator on the left side of the building.  Quad Sports in on the fifth floor in Suite 502:

The only time I visited their new location was literally the second day they were open there.  I would assume they've added some signage outside the door but I don't know that for sure.  Here's what the doorway to their old location looked like:

So why do I like this store so much?  They have lots of singles.  They have huge monster boxes full of cards from various BBM sets going back to 1991 as well as other card sets (even for other sports).

Most stores in Japan charge 100 yen for single common cards.  I'm not positive but I think Quad Sports still only charges 50 yen*.  I bought 120-130 1999 BBM singles here on my last visit and they charged me 6000 yen although there may have been a volume discount.  The combination of the inventory plus the low price of commons makes this probably the best store in Japan to do set building at.  I've spent several hours here building BBM flagship sets (2003 & 2004 1st Version sets in 2013 and 1998, 1999 and 2000 this past trip) as well as BBM's Rookie Edition sets.

*UPDATE - I got some clarification from Ryan after I finished this post.  Quad Sports charges 40 or 50 yen for singles.  This is roughly the same as Wrappers, Mint Akihabara and Mint Odawara in Kanto, Sports Cards BITS and Mint Ponyland in Nagoya and possibly Mint Hakata in Fukuoka.

Higher priced cards are also available here.  Many are located in binders that are kept in cabinets.  Others are in cases.

By "higher priced cards" I mean rookies, inserts, parallels and autograph and memorabilia cards.  I don't think the store stocks older, pre-1991 cards but I wasn't really looking for them when I was here.

My photos don't show it but there's a table in the middle of the room where you can comfortably sit to go through boxes of cards.  The owner is friendly and helpful.  He speaks a little English - as usual his English was much better than my Japanese.

Here's a map showing the location of the building.  I've used the Saint Marc Cafe on the first floor as the reference point:



The store was written up in Sports Card Magazine #113 in September of 2015.  Obviously the article talks about the old location.

I do want to point out that the new store is smaller than the old one.  I did a panoramic of the old store when Ryan and I stopped there:

It doesn't do the store justice - there are shelves full of boxes behind me when I took the photo.  You can see some of them on the right side of the photo.

UPDATE - I visited the store again on my 2024 trip and it remains my favorite store in Japan.  Ryan and I spent an hour or so there on my first full day in Japan searching for cards on our respective want lists.  I was so excited to be there again that I neglected to take any pictures inside it.  (Being jet lagged probably didn't help much either.)  I did take a picture of the door before we went in and you can see they've added a little more information than they had previously: