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The traditional 144 tile game in a tin that closes flat. Tiles at 20 or 26 mm, a playing cloth folded inside, and nothing that rattles in a suitcase.
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Flat $9.95 shipping · 30-day returns from delivery
This is the 144 tile game: 3 suits, winds, dragons, flowers, no jokers. It is the set most of the world calls simply mahjong, and it is a different game from the American 166 tile version. The tiles do not interchange between the two.
What changes here is the scale. A standard Chinese tile runs around 40 mm tall. These are 20 or 26 mm, small enough that a full wall of 144 tiles builds on a tray table, a picnic blanket or a kitchen counter that also holds dinner.
Most travel sets ship in a fabric case or a hinged wooden box, and both have the same weakness: they open in a bag. A tin closes on its own hinge and holds shut under the weight of what is packed on top. It also does not absorb humidity the way a cardboard lined case does, which matters if the set lives in a car or a beach house through a summer.
The lid takes the playing cloth folded flat. That cloth is not decoration: mini tiles on a bare table are loud, and they slide. On cloth they sit where they are placed.
The 20 mm tiles genuinely disappear into a carry-on. They suit a player who already knows the tile faces and reads them by pattern. The 26 mm size is the compromise most people end up happy with: it still packs small, but the characters stay legible under a dim lamp across a table of four.
If the set is for a household where someone is learning, take the 26 mm.
Melamine at this size still takes a cut engraving with colour laid into it, so the markings survive shuffling. Wipe with a barely damp cloth. Count the tiles back into the tin at the end of a session, because a 20 mm tile that lands in a car seat is gone.
| Tiles | 144 |
|---|---|
| Tile size | 20 x 14 x 10 mm or 26 x 18 x 12 mm |
| Material | Melamine |
| Weight | 1 kg (2.2 lb) |
| Box | Hinged tin |
| Colours | Jade white, pink, green, Lantian jade |
| Age | 14 and over |
Actual size
Drawn to scale. Tile 20 x 14 x 10 mm, next to a standard credit card.
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.
A current set is worth what it does at a table, which comes down to count, tile size and the container. This one is the full 144 in a hinged tin with a playing cloth, at 1 kg, with tiles at 20 or 26 mm. Older Chinese sets belong to a separate market, valued by collectors on material and completeness rather than playability, and worth having appraised before anyone plays with them.
Partly. An American set holds 166 tiles, which is the traditional 144 plus jokers and blanks, so the tiles you need are in there once the extras are set aside. What differs is not the equipment but the play: the American game runs on a yearly card of standing hands, the Chinese game on its own scoring. This set is the 144 count directly, with no jokers to pull out before a hand starts.
Every tile is moulded, then engraved and filled with colour, and 144 of them have to match. Doing that at 20 mm is harder than at full size rather than easier, because the cut still has to read across a table. Then there is the container, which is where sets are usually cheapened: a hinged tin holds shut in a bag where a fabric case opens, and the cloth folded in the lid comes with it.
The kong box is the reserved end of the wall, also called the dead wall. It is the last 14 tiles, set aside so that a player who declares a kong or draws a flower takes a replacement from there rather than from the live wall. The hand ends when the live wall runs out, with the kong box left standing. Separating it is the first thing done once the wall has been built and broken.
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.
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