Ginza Itoya Floor by Floor: What to Buy and What It Costs

By Sachi, in NagoyaWritten from what we bought, booked and ate ourselves

Updated September 2026. Every photo is from our own visit.

Time: 60–90 minutes (you will not leave sooner)
Budget: beautiful souvenirs from ¥300 (≈ $2); most under ¥1,000 (≈ $6)
Where: Chuo-dori, Ginza, 3 minutes from Ginza Station. Look up for the giant red paperclip
Watch out for: your suitcase space. Twelve floors take longer than you expect, so pick three before you go in

The short version:
1. Twelve floors, one theme each. Photograph the floor guide by the elevator and pick two or three
2. Best souvenir floors: 1F cards · 2F letters · 7F washi paper
3. Most of the nice things here cost less than a coffee back home
4. Before you leave: the “mail yourself a letter” move on 2F, explained below. Do it.

Every country has souvenirs. Japan has 文房具 bunbōgu, stationery, and people here take it as seriously as Italians take leather. In Ginza there is a twelve-story building that has sold only stationery since 1904. It is also where my husband sat down and wrote me a letter. More on that below.

Ginza Itoya storefront with arrow pointing to the red paperclip sign — G.Itoya on Chuo-dori (open in Google Maps). The red paperclip above the door has been a Ginza landmark for generations.

Why a stationery store deserves your Tokyo time

Japan never stopped writing by hand, and I think I know why. We are reserved: 本音 honne, our real feelings, rarely get said out loud, so we write them in letters. From there it spread to “kawaii” sticker sheets, glitter pens and washi-patterned postcards, all for decorating things you feel but would never say. Itoya is where people shop for all of it. It is more than a souvenir store with pens; it is the 120-year-old headquarters of Japanese paper civilization, and walking around it is one of the calmest, most Japanese things you can do in Tokyo.

Floor by floor: where to actually go

1F Cards: greeting cards and postcards, including die-cut pieces you will not find anywhere else
2F Letters: writing paper, envelopes, stamps, and the Write & Post corner (the insider move lives here)
3F Pens: roughly 2,000 of them, from ¥300 (≈ $2) gel pens that write better than your pen at home to fountain pens with waiting lists
4F–6F Notebooks, travel goods, home: all browse-worthy; ration your time
7F Fine paper: over a thousand kinds including 和紙 washi, with a Paper Concierge on staff, a kind of paper sommelier
12F Café Stylo: for when your decision muscles give out

Rows of fountain pens on the pen floor at Ginza Itoya — The pen floor: two thousand of them, laid out like jewelry.

What to buy: souvenirs that feel like secrets

Wall of greeting cards at Ginza Itoya stationery store — One wall of one floor. Cards run ¥300–600 (≈ $2–4). Cheap, and good enough to frame.

Hand holding a TOKYO die-cut card at the 7 days cards shelf Ginza Itoya — The TOKYO die-cut card that came home with us, found on the “7 days cards” shelf.

Hand holding JAPAN and TOKYO sticker packs at Ginza Itoya — JAPAN and TOKYO sticker sets. Flat and light, and friends take them the minute you hand them over.

Our shortlist, tested for suitcase-worthiness: 一筆箋 ippitsusen, “one-stroke” note paper: small sheets for a few handwritten lines, the 粋 iki of saying a lot with a little. Around ¥400–700 (≈ $2–4). Die-cut cards like our TOKYO one. Sticker sets of Japan icons. Embroidered bookmarks. Yes, that is a piece of toast stitched in thread. And one silly gel pen for yourself.

Embroidered toast and plant bookmarks at Ginza Itoya — Embroidered bookmarks, very Japanese “kawaii”. Nobody needs a hand-stitched slice of toast, which is why I like it.

Shelf of mizuhiki decorated money envelopes at Ginza Itoya — Money envelopes tied with mizuhiki paper cords. In Japan, even the knot has a meaning.

TSŪ INFORMATION
what Japanese connoisseurs know

Those decorated envelopes deserve a pause. The cords are mizuhiki, and they work like a language. Japan has a different envelope for each ceremonial occasion: 冠婚葬祭 kankonsōsai, the four big ceremonies of life. The details carry the meaning. Red-and-white cords for celebrations, black-and-white for funerals; knots that untie for happy events you would gladly repeat, knots that never untie for a wedding. If you give the wrong one, people notice, so you will see locals stop and think at this shelf too. A ¥400 (≈ $2) envelope here means more than most luxury goods, and now you can explain it to your friends back home.

For edible souvenirs in the same part of Ginza, see Shorakuen Kiosk at GINZA SIX: mountain-shaped sweets, cookie tins and a ¥500 gacha, with shelf prices.

What things actually cost (photographed August 2026)

We went back on 29 August 2026 and photographed the tags this time, so the ranges above now have hard numbers under them. Everything here is the tax-included price on the shelf, what you pay at the till. Itoya’s tags show both: the big number is with tax, the small one in brackets (本体) is without.

Postcard rack at Ginza Itoya with ukiyo-e prints, a ninja under the moon and Tokyo skyline cards — The 1F postcard racks. A plain postcard from here is ¥220; the number comes from the framing sign below, which itemises it.

Wood postcard display at Ginza Itoya with a Touch me! Made in Japan sign and a 700 yen tax included sticker, beside illustrated Kashiwamochi and Tempura Soba recipe postcards — “Touch me! WOOD POST CARD”: a postcard cut from a real sheet of wood, ¥700 tax in, and it goes through the post as it is. On the right, the illustrated recipe postcards (kashiwamochi, tempura soba) that label every ingredient in English.

Item	You pay
Postcard (standard, from the racks)	¥220
Wood postcard, made in Japan	¥700
EDiT B7 notebook, “Japanese Icons” cover (kokeshi dolls / ramen)	¥1,320
おいしい魚トランプ, “delicious fish” playing cards, part 1	¥1,760
Solar Eclipse (New York) hand-painted compact mirror	¥5,500
Brigitte Tanaka × Itoya embroidered organza pouch	¥7,150
Having a postcard framed: white frame ¥7,799 + dark-green mat ¥605 + the postcard ¥220	¥8,624

EDiT B7 notebook with a yellow kokeshi doll cover reading Find Tiny Joys held in a hand at Ginza Itoya, price tag 1320 yen — EDiT is a Japanese notebook brand; this B7 pocket size with the kokeshi cover was ¥1,320. The tag reads “EDiT B7ノート Japanese Icons.”

Framed Sukiyaki postcard at Ginza Itoya with a price breakdown sign, frame 7799 yen, mat 605 yen, postcard 220 yen, total 8624 yen tax included — The sample on the wall: a ¥220 “Sukiyaki” postcard, framed. The sign itemises it (frame ¥7,799, mat ¥605, postcard ¥220, total ¥8,624 tax in) and says framing consultations happen at the annexe (K.Itoya) basement.

The tags answered two things we had only guessed before. First, the cheap end is cheap: a ¥220 postcard is the lowest-priced thing in the building that you would actually want. Second, the expensive things are the collaborations. The Brigitte Tanaka pouch at ¥7,150 is embroidered organza made for Itoya, and you will only find it here. In between, most of what people buy costs ¥700–1,500.

Wooden drawer of small shell hair clips and brooches shaped like flowers and animals at Ginza Itoya — A drawer of shell hair clips. We did not photograph the tag, so we have no price, but everyone stops at this display.

The 粋 iki move: mail yourself a letter

IKI STYLE
the Japanese idea of cool

Here is the one thing almost no tourist does. On 2F there is a Write & Post corner: buy a card, sit down, write a few lines to yourself about this exact day (where you ate, what surprised you, who you were with) and mail it to your own home address. It costs a postcard and a stamp. Two weeks after you get home, when the trip has started to blur, a letter arrives from Ginza in your own handwriting. We have never met anyone who regretted it.

The moment that got me

I have to admit something. My favorite moment at Itoya had nothing to do with shopping. I stood in an aisle watching visitors from overseas pick up a pen or a sheet of paper, things I have used all my life without thinking, and say wow, out loud, smiling. To a ballpoint pen. Seeing my everyday things become someone else’s treasure changed how I see my own country a little.

言霊 kotodama: the reason all of this exists

The day we visited was my birthday. Somewhere between the card walls my husband disappeared for a few minutes. That evening he handed me a card he had chosen, and written, right there in the building. The cake is long gone. I still have the card: my name, that date, his handwriting.

Handwritten 30th birthday letter, signature redacted — The letter itself. You do not need to read Japanese to know what it says. (Signature bashfully erased.)

Japan has an old belief called 言霊 kotodama: the belief that words carry a spirit, and that writing them down gives them power. We rarely say what we feel out loud, so we put it on paper, and Itoya has been selling the paper for over 120 years. If you buy a card, write something in it and give it to someone.

Floor guide panel of the twelve story Ginza Itoya building — The real floor guide, photographed by the elevator. Save it for your visit.

Pocket recap:
• Chuo-dori, Ginza · look for the red paperclip · plan 60–90 min
• Photograph the floor guide → hit 1F cards, 2F letters, 3F pens, 7F washi
• Good souvenirs: 一筆箋 ippitsusen note paper · die-cut cards · sticker sets · mizuhiki envelopes
• The 粋 iki thing to do: write yourself a postcard at 2F Write & Post and mail it home
• 言霊 kotodama: words carry spirit. Buy one card and write it to someone you love
• Typical hours 10:00–20:00, checked July 2026; confirm before a special trip

Nobody paid us; Itoya has no idea who we are. We just think a ¥400 envelope is a better souvenir than a ¥4,000 keychain.

More from this trip: the photos began in our Tokyo camera roll. The shortlist version, what to actually buy and what to skip, is our stationery souvenir guide, and Kimuraya’s 150-year-old anpan is a five-minute walk away. And if you are planning your own visit, start with our Perfect Japan Guide: live exchange rates, pocket phrases with native audio, and everything we tell friends before they visit.