My original plan in Nagoya was to visit all three card shops there on the fourth day of my trip. However due to my back and hip issues (and my generally being out of shape) I was pretty much done for the day after Sean and I had visited Sports Card BITS and Mint Ponyland. And while I spent the entire next day in Nagoya, all three card shops were closed that day (as they are all closed on Wednesdays). So it wasn't until the following Monday when I stopped in Nagoya again on my way back to Tokyo from Fukuoka that I finally got around to getting to the third Nagoya store - Match Up.
Match Up is located in the Naka Ward of Nagoya, on Wakamiya-odori right across the street from Wakamiya-odori Park. It's on the second floor of a building called Aoki Building West. There's a parking garage (or at least the entrance to a parking garage) on the first floor and it's not entirely clear when looking at the front of the building that there are shops in the building - especially if like me you aren't looking up and noticing the big obvious sign for Match Up. You have to walk into the garage to get to the staircase to go upstairs to the store - I think that's the door to the staircase visible on the right in this photo (just below "20:00"):
Here's the door to the store on the second floor. The store is a little nicer inside than you'd think from how the door looks.
You can see the store is nicer than the door in these two photos:
I'm going to be honest here - I didn't really give this store a chance. I had misinterpreted something Ryan had told me when talking about the Nagoya shops - "Match Up will be least useful for you, but that doesn’t mean it should be skipped, just a lower priority" - as basically saying that they wouldn't have anything I was interested in and as a result I didn't set aside much time for it. (Although in my defense I was fitting it into my already pretty busy schedule.) The owner was very friendly and I should have taken more opportunity to see what I could find there. Instead I just asked about the 2004 BBM 1st Version Japan National Team inserts as opposed to some cards that might have been more likely for him to have carried.
What I did see at the store was a lot of assorted singles but I can't tell you how far back they go. He had a lot of opened box sets and Idol cards. I ended up not buying anything here - only the second store in the thirteen I had visited at this point in the trip that I didn't spend any money at.
The store was written up in Sports Card Magazine #119 in September of 2016.
I believe that there's a sign by the cash register in the last picture that indicates that they take credit cards.
Oh, and let's take a more detailed look at something else in that last picture:
That's a Staten Island Yankees cup! Huh. I wonder how that ended up here. I asked the shop owner where he got the cup. He said it was a gift from a customer. Hmm, do I know any Staten Island Yankee fans who are known to frequent card shops in Nagoya...
Seriously though - I know that both Zippy Zappy and Ryan like this store so I feel bad I didn't take more time here. Next time I'm in Nagoya I'll correct that oversight.
Here's a map of the store's location:
Nagoya's Mandarake store is located roughly a half mile to the southwest of Match Up so it's an easy walk if you want to hit both stores.
