In your bag · 0 items
Your bag is empty
A complete 166 tile American set in a hard aluminum case, with 4 racks and pushers and tiles engraved at full 30 mm size.
delivery_truck_bolt Estimated delivery: -
Flat $9.95 shipping · 30-day returns from delivery
American mahjong runs on 166 tiles. The 3 suits account for 108, then 12 dragons, 16 winds, 16 flowers, 8 jokers and a few blanks held as spares. The jokers are the part that separates the American game from the 144 tile game played across Asia: they change what a hand can be built from, and the National Mah Jongg League publishes a new card of standing hands every spring that assumes they are there.
A set that cannot cover the current card is a set you replace. This one covers it.
At 30 mm these are full size. It is worth being clear about what that means in practice: a 20 mm travel tile fits in a suitcase and asks your eye to work, while a 30 mm tile sits in the hand with enough weight to be placed rather than dropped, and reads from the opposite seat without leaning in.
If the set is for a table at home, full size is the right choice and there is little argument for anything smaller.
Most American sets travel in a soft zip bag. A bag is lighter and it slumps into a car footwell, which is exactly the problem: whatever lands on top of it lands on the tiles. A hard case takes the impact itself.
It also stacks. A case sits flat under a bed or on a closet shelf with something else on top of it, where a soft bag has to be the top of the pile.
The markings are cut into the tile and filled with colour. Printed tiles are cheaper and they look identical in a photograph; the difference appears after 2 years of shuffling, when printing has worn thin at the edges and engraving has not.
The annual card is not included, and no supplier includes it. It comes from the National Mah Jongg League directly, it changes every year, and buying one is part of playing the American game. Any set advertising the card as included is selling last year's.
Wipe with a barely damp cloth. Keep the case out of a hot car through a summer, which is what yellows melamine faster than any amount of play.
| Tiles | 166 |
|---|---|
| Tile size | 30 mm |
| Material | Melamine |
| Colour | Ivory |
| Case | Aluminum, hard shell |
| Racks | 4, with pushers |
| Weight | 3.8 kg (8.4 lb) |
| Age | 14 and over |
Orders are processed within 1 to 2 business days, with tracking on every parcel. Delivery across the United States takes 10 to 25 days and costs $9.95, one flat rate charged once per order whatever the number of items.
Changed your mind? You have 30 days from delivery to request a return, unused and in its original packaging. Approved refunds go back to your original payment method within 3 business days.
Play tonight
Tiles, and everything the case holds, in one box. Unwrap it, deal a hand, and your table is running.
The sound alone
Shuffling a real set is half the pleasure. Weight in your hand, that clack across the table: you can hear it before you see it.
Yours for twenty years
A set outlasts the group it started with. Choose one you'll still want on the table when someone else is dealing.
Price follows the count and the finish. An American set carries 166 tiles rather than 144, because jokers and blanks are added, and each one here is engraved at full 30 mm and then hand painted rather than printed. 4 racks with pushers and a hard aluminum case add to that, which is why the whole thing lands at 3.8 kg. Printed tiles in a card box cost less and show it after 2 years of shuffling.
Original usually means a pre-war bone and bamboo set, and value there rests on material, completeness and the state of the case rather than on the game itself. Those sets are appraised individually by specialists, and most of them lack the jokers the American game needs. A modern set like this one is bought as equipment: 166 melamine tiles at 30 mm, 4 racks with pushers, an aluminum case.
Enough that it needs a proper appraisal rather than an estimate, and there is a complication beyond price: trade in ivory is restricted or prohibited in many countries, which affects whether an old set can be sold at all. Anyone holding one should check the rules where they live before doing anything. This set is engraved melamine in ivory colour, with none of that attached to it.
Start with the count, because it has to be 166 tiles to cover the current National Mah Jongg League card. Then tile size, since 30 mm reads from the opposite seat where a 20 mm travel tile asks the eye to work. Then whether 4 racks and pushers are included, as buying them separately adds up. Then the case: aluminum takes a knock that a soft zip bag passes straight through to the tiles.
A mahjong set is handled more than almost anything else in the house: every tile passes through four pairs of hands, several times a game.
That is what we select for. Tiles that read clearly from the far side of the table, edges that stay clean, and a case that still closes after a few seasons of being carried around.
Sets differ in ways that only show at the table: the weight of a tile in the hand, how a crak reads from three seats away, whether the case survives the trip to a friend’s house.
When we have the figures, we publish them: tile count, tile size, weight and material. When we do not have one, we leave it out rather than guess.
Loading…
