When I had visited this shop in the past, I didn't have enough time to really explore. I searched through a few boxes and looked in the cases, but the majority of the store was unknown to me.
This time, I spent a good bit of time browsing through the boxes and binders to get a good feel of what they have.
First, the binders. There are dozens of them with cards from team sets and smaller releases.
They don't seem to go back too far in time, but I found a bunch of cards for my type collection I was missing before, including a few inserts. They're easy to navigate, too, because images of packs (or boxes) from the release are on the front. It's much better than trying to decipher a bunch of Japanese characters. Team issues are usually grouped by team, with the smaller player-based sets bunched together. SGN sets all seemed to share the same binder, separate from BBM. And Frontier had its own place too, if I remember correctly.
The boxes have BBM going back to 1991, and they're pretty organized. (The Hiyama card came from the binders, but it's a cool image and I wanted to share it.) Stock is pretty good, especially for older product.
I found a bunch of cards I've been hunting for for quite some time, and prices are reasonable. Yes, I bought all four Hideo Nomo cards from the 20th Century Best Players set, without photos, because they were pretty cheap.
I found all of the modern (1991-present) singles I have been looking for to complete my awards collection. Some things are just really hard to find, but this store manages to have a good stock of most of them.
I also picked up type cards for sets that have been released since I arrived in Japan, but somehow forgot about.
With so many cards available, I really chopped away at my First Pitch want list (I still need a couple more cards) and I grabbed a few foreigners as well, though I didn't focus too much on it.
I believe singles start at 50 yen, but I'm not entirely sure now. They seem to just give discounts anyway to people who are buying larger quantities - possibly to keep me coming back?
The cases have the usual nice cards, but again it seems that prices aren't outrageous. I didn't find a lot along the lines of older Calbee cards, but I got a lucky card at a bargain, considering prices I've seen in Tokyo. I just sent off the tab to get reedemed.
Mint Ponyland may be the most organized store in Nagoya - or all of Japan - but BITS is pretty well-organized too, and they seemed to have more of the cards I really needed. Once again, I find myself wondering where all the inserts are, but this is another store I'll be going back to - I have another 500 yen coupon to redeem from their rewards/point program!
For details on directions and store hours, please
refer to my original post.
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