About Us

To all our wonderful customers, please note that we CLOSED our retail store, OLD JAPAN INC. in New York City, on December 24th, 2006, after years of watching the rents skyrocket out of control. After wondering where to try next we ended up in the Berkshires, in western Massachusetts, but the resort area could not sustain our business all year round, so we closed that store in September 2009. Since then we have moved our retail store once more, this time ending up in the South End in Boston Massachusetts. We are in a beautiful historic district, and coincidentally enough this neighborhood reminds us a lot of our wonderful first "home" in the West Village, in New York City. You can find us in Boston at the following address:

Old Japan Inc. 24 Union Park STREET  Boston Massachusetts 02118

tel. 617-357-8800

Our hours change depending on the season, so please call or email first before you visit.

I fell in love with Japan and all things Japanese when I was 17, and went to Japan when I was 21, to study Japanese and the culture. I was fortunate enough to meet my husband  when I was studying Japanese at Nichibei Kaiwai Gakuin in Yotsuya, Tokyo. Nichibei is a top-notch language school, and I recommend its intensive courses to anyone who is interested in becoming fluent in Japanese. I also managed to graduate from Sophia University in Tokyo, their International Division, and I highly recommend this school for students interested in living and studying in Japan. The professors are the best in their fields from all over the world, the student body is small (so you really get a lot of one-on-one attention), and its still relatively inexpensive. When we checked this year, in 2009, the tuition was about $7000 for the whole year.

I fell in love with Japanese antiques after living in Japan for 12 years, and with my husband's support and encouragement we decided to open a store in New York city in 1990. Its been a labor of love for both of us since then, and I can't imagine doing anything else!

We carry the things we love, from Japanese Antiques to Vintage Silk Kimonos, fabulous Textiles for quilters, and inexpensive Japanese Gift Items.  Our Lucky Cats are some of the most interesting ones available in America, because we return to Japan and hand-pick a new selection almost every year. We have much, much more in our retail store, in a price range for everyone, and this year we have started to carry a selection of both re-struck and original Woodblock Prints. Please come in and visit us, and see for yourself!

 The following is a list of what we DO carry:

We DON'T have Netsuke or Swords. We don't have a catalog, because so many of the things we carry are one of a kind, including our Vintage Silk Kimonos. We do carry other small things, too numerous to list. And we do sell some of the above high-lighted items by Mail Order. To place an order, please call us at our store during store hours with your credit card information. We don't accept card information over the Internet because we prefer the old-fashioned way of talking to customers, person to person. We like to hear our customers Voices, and we hope they like to hear ours too.

If you're looking for something, you can try our site map.