Card Shops In Japan

I wanted to provide a single place for an overview of card shops in Japan as my posts about visiting stores may become out of date and I may not revise them with new information in a timely manner.  For example four of the ten shops I visited in March of 2013 (Quad Sports, Wrappers, Mint Akihibara and Mint Yokohama) have moved to new locations since then.  I think there has been a trend for stores to move into smaller locations in recent years (Quad Sports and Wrappers) or move into just selling on-line (Nagoya CAPS).

If you are planning on visiting a card shop in Japan and are using this as a reference, please independently verify that the store is still open and still located where I say it was.  And if something has changed, please let me know so I can update this page (and any posts about the store).  The Mint chain of stores has a web page showing all their locations - there's an English version as well but it doesn't list as many stores for some reason.  Ryan Gluesing's blog "This Card Is Cool" has a wealth of information about card shops although again the posts may be out of date.

The following is the list of all the card shops I know of in Japan by region.  I will include a links to the store's website (if it has one to my knowledge) and any posts about the store by either myself, Ryan or Sean of "Getting Back Into Baseball Cards...In Japan".  I will point out the obvious - the store web sites are all in Japanese.

Hokkaido
Sapporo - Mint Sapporo: Ryan 2013 (old location)

Tohoku
Hanamaki - Mint M's Sakuradai CLOSED
Sendai - Mint Sendai: 2019 (old location)

Kanto
Atsugi - Mint C & K Hon Atsugi
Chiba - Mint Chiba: Ryan 2012, 2019
Hiratsuka - Mint Hiratsuka
Musashino - Mint Kichijoji
Odawara - Mint Odawara: Ryan 2016 (old location), 2019 (old location)
Tachikawa - Mint Tachikawa: Ryan 2012, Ryan 2014
Tokyo (Chiyoda - Akihabara) - Mint Akihabara: Ryan 2012 (old location)2013 (old location), Ryan 2014, 2019
Tokyo (Chiyoda - Jinbocho) - Biblio: 2013, 2019
Tokyo (Chiyoda - Jinbocho)Mint Kanda: Ryan 20122013, 2019 CLOSED
Tokyo (Chiyoda - Jinbocho) - Wrappers: 2013 (old location), Ryan 2014 (old location), 2019 CLOSED
Tokyo (Chuo - Nihonbashi) - Mint Lab Tokyo
Tokyo (Shibuya) - Card Fanatic: 2019 (old location)
Tokyo (Shibuya) - Mint Shibuya: 2019 (old location)
Tokyo (Shinjuku) - Mint Shinjuku: Ryan 2014 (old location), 2019 (old location)
Tokyo (Shinjuku - Takadanobaba) - Quad Sports: 2013 (old location), Ryan 2014 (old location), 2019
Tokyo (Taito - Okachimachi) - G-Freak: 2013, 2019
Tokyo (Taito - Ueno) - Niki: 2013
Tokyo (Toshima - Ikebukuro) - Coletre: 2013, 2019
Tokyo (Toshima - Ikebukuro) - Mint Ikebukuro (NOTE - link is to the first floor shop but there's another shop on the second floor): Ryan 20122013, 2019
Urawa - Mint Urawa: Ryan 2012, Ryan 2013, Ryan 2014, 2019
Yokohama - Mint Yokohama: Ryan 2012 (older location)2013 (older location), Ryan 2014 (older location), 2019 (old location)

Chubu
Gamagori - Mint Hinamagori
Nagoya - Match Up: Ryan 2012 2019

Kansai
Kobe - Mint Sannomiya
Osaka - Mint Umeda: 2019

Chugoku
Hiroshima - Mint Hiroshima: 2019

Kyushu
Fukuoka - Mint Hakata (formerly Mint Kashii): 2019

There is also a chain of antique toy stores called Mandarake that carry vintage cards at some of their locations.  I know that there are cards at their Nagoya and Nakano locations but I don't know about other ones.  Mandarake will ship to the US.

If you are looking for stores to do set building at (meaning you want a store that has a large collection of single cards going back a number of years), I recommend Quad Sports, Wrappers, Mint Urawa, Mint Odawara, Mint Ikebukuro and Coletre in Kanto, Sports Card BITS and Mint Ponyland in Nagoya and Mint Hakata in Fukuoka.

If you're looking for just the latest products in packs or boxes, are looking for a few singles from the last couple years or just looking for the hits, you can go to any of the "mall stores".  The ones I've been to are Mint Shinjuku, Mint Shibuya, Card Fanatic, Mint Chiba, Mint Yokohama and Mint Akihabara in Kanto, Mint Urawa in Osaka, and Mints Hiroshima, Fukuoka and Sendai in those cities.

3 comments:

Lastraps said...

I stopped in to Mandarake locations in Osaka and I found both of the stores to be huge but only a very tiny section was dedicated to baseball and baseball carts. These particular locations focus on things like anime also on things like figures and super heroes. Another thing that is of interest is that the only focus on older baseball cards from the 70s and 80s at these locations you can get yourself different types of cards it’s kind of hit and miss but it’s a pretty cool for a guy who likes to collect.

NPB Card Guy said...

Yeah, the one I went to in Nagoya just had a small display of cards near the escalator on the first floor. If Sean hadn't told me where to look it probably would have taken me a long time to find them.

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