Express Shopping at Mint Ikebukuro and Mint Shibuya

For those that haven't been to Japan, it is a wonderful place to live and visit!  I took another trip to Japan over Spring Break with my family and we spent the last day in Tokyo where I was able to hit up a few card shops, albeit rather quickly as I didn't want to bore the family with my browsing.  We had other fun family things to do so I wanted to limit the amount of time card shopping.  I was able to hit up three stores though: Mint Ikebukuro, Mint Shibuya, and Yellow Submarine in Akihabara.  Dave over at the Japanese Baseball Cards Blog did a great 4-part series on a bunch of card shops in Japan so I won't recapture what he has there, but his stuff in his blog is extremely useful when picking and choosing where you want to spend your card-shopping time.  One of these days, I would love to make a sports-only trip to Japan to watch baseball, basketball, sumo wrestling, and go card shopping.  I think the end of March I could probably hit all those up over a two-week period.

I spent about 20 minutes in Mint Ikebukuro (groan....right?  only 20 minutes...ha!)  I was able to browse their sumo and pack selection and walked away with another box of 2017 BBM B.League Basketball Fast Break 2nd Half as well as an assortment of random packs that I will open up on my next blog post.  The staff was really helpful and we chatted for a few minutes in my horrific Japanese about collecting Brandon Laird, Yuta Tabuse, and Sumo Wrestling.  Unfortunately, they didn't have any older menko cards, but it was a fun browse!

Mint Shibuya was a quick walk from the station and we were mainly here to do the Shibuya Crossing where everyone crosses the street at one time and in force.  It was definitely fun to people watch here and do the crossing.  My son got a kick out of it.  We headed over to Mint Shibuya and I was intrigued about the bar they had in the store to drink while breaking card boxes.  As tempting as it was, I had to resist bellying up the bar to throw one back as I am sure it would have turned into two and three and my son was with me.  The store was a little smaller than I was expecting, but I did walk away with a sweet deal on a 2015 Sumo Wrestling Box and some more packs.

The last store I headed into was Yellow Submarine over in Akihabara.  I actually didn't see a whole lot here and we were in the area for the arcades anyway, but it was pretty neat to check out all the floors.  A lot of gaming and idol cards here and I didn't end up walking away with anything.  Booo, but I did have fun browsing.  No pictures unfortunately.


Here is what I did end up getting in my bag to haul back home.

I was able to fill in most of my Members Card...hopefully I can spend a bit more at some point to get my ￥500 discount......stay tuned for some pack breaks!

Mint Mall Musings and why Japanese are "masters of efficiency"

Maybe I am biased having lived in Japan, but I swear by Japanese efficiency.  I can get an Express Mail Service (EMS) package from Tokyo to southern Alabama faster that it takes for me to ship a package from Alabama to my home state of Wyoming via USPS.  Take for example my latest shipment from Mint Mall.  It left Mint Mall and processed through Narita early in the morning of 28 February Alabama time and was at my doorstep the morning of 2 March.  Reading online posts, most everyone has the same experience.  It seems that EMS skips some steps with customs which would explain the blazing speed.  It is amazing the USPS postal system works that fast with EMS packages on this end when they have a hard time with their own internal packages sometimes.  And my latest shipment of two 2016 BBM sumo boxes only cost around $20.  Simply amazing!

I really wanted to talk briefly about Mint Mall, a sports collectibles chain store in Japan.  There have been numerous blog posts about Team Mint from Dave over at Japanese Baseball Cards, and Ryan at This Card is Cool.  Those two guys have actually been able to go to the stores in person.  I haven't used their online service until now (actually I bought their stuff through eBay), but they have been making a big push in Beckett Magazine to the English-speaking market.  I'm hoping to be able to visit a few of them when I head to Japan in a few weeks.  Navigating their website does take a bit to get used to and you have to keep in mind that you are browsing different stores inventory as well as their web inventory.  They do have overseas shipping information here.  It does look like if you want cards from 3 or more different stores, there will be a $5 fee handling fee.  Here is their latest flyer that has the numerous stores throughout Japan list listed....take a look at Mint Shibuya....they have actually installed a bar so "you can enjoy some alcohol while breaking card boxes."  Whoop, I know where I am going to go first.

I had zero issues with the order and they actually sent some extra BBM Masterpiece sumo cards along with their pretty fancy holographic business card printed on high quality card stock.  Great customer service as always from a Japanese business! 

I walked away with nothing too fancy...just a few boxes of 2016 BBM Sumo that filled in a hole in my unopened collection.  I might open one of them for a box break review at some point.

They are pretty much on par with Rakuten as far as selection (although much more of the singles cards at Mint Mall) and they have a lot more of the American stuff for expats living abroad.  I am excited about picking up some stuff in person and I'll hopefully have some fun stuff to share when I get back.