Featured Mahjong

Next is a butterscotch Bakelite set in an OK sturdy box. 152 of these including jokers. And long multicolored Bakelite racks, with four curious metal posts on the end, for what purpose? So American set, right?

 

And one in a wooden box that looks almost identical to the wooden box in shangas’ third picture, mahogany hand dovetailed together. Really looks identical except for characters on front of sliding door. Inside 144 bone and bamboo tiles dovetailed together, with hand carved characters and sticks, die and chips. Based on the MADEINCHINA on the bottom I would date this to end 19th, beginning 20th century, do you agree? And what do you value your set at?

 

Oh and one more play set, since I keep these together. Missing the feet. My only lathe is four feet long so really not appropriate for turning replacements a quarter inch long, but maybe I’ll find a tool and get to it someday. I’m not sure whether bone or ivory, the carving is tiny for bone (carved inlaid decorative tiles about one inch by one inch).

 

I bought my set for about $400.

Yours will date to the early 1900s.

The numbers on the tiles means that it was made for export. Sets weren't made for large-scale export to the US until the 1920s, so yours is about 100 years old, +/- 5 years.

It's more elaborate, which means it's likely to be older. "MADE IN CHINA" in this context almost always means MADE IN SHANGHAI. That's where the mahjong factories were in China, taking advantage of the Port of Shanghai for large-scale export directly to the USA.

 

Chinese sets are always 144 tiles. 152 means it was made specifically for NMJL American mahjong. The presence of the racks would make that obvious already, if the number of tiles did not.

Chinese people don't use racks in mahjong - never have done, never will - this isn't Scrabble! Only Americans do that - no idea why.

The posts on the tile racks are for holding your scoring tokens.

 

Yes, this is the newest. Late 20th century manufacture. Chinese set by the looks of it.

And yes, be extremely careful with the case - they're usually very fragile.

If you want to learn an Asian version - learn Hong Kong style. There's good videos on YouTube to teach you. It's the most common, widely played version, and generally easy to learn.

Not necessarily easy to WIN - but easy enough to learn!!

If you're in America, well the American version I guess, but I always felt it came with numerous disadvantages to the Chinese Hong Kong version, but that could just be me waving my Asian pride flag, I guess.

 

When in Rome........

 

that's my Moms set........ I used to play with the metal tokens...
thank you..

 

There's a Roman version of Mahjong as well?!

 

My husband took pictures for me, and counted the tiles 168, he said they have jokers.

 

Thank you, as far as I can tell, our sets are the same, both with numbers and the same materials and construction, size and age. Since you are a dealer with a couple of the sets you showed here for sale on eBay, I assume you think this set is worth more than the $400 you paid. I would be more interested to know what you believe your set is WORTH if you listed it for sale (I am not a dealer so don’t know market in these at all). Hoping that isn’t crass to ask.

 

The problem with mahjong sets is that they're EXTREMELY common. Literally thousands, millions, were produced every week, every YEAR in China, in the early 1900s.

In the 1800s, mahjong was a Chinese game, played in China, by the Chinese, mostly in major cities like Shanghai, Peking, etc. Nobody had really heard of the game outside of China -- that's why when that diplomat guy showed up in the States in 1875 with two mahjong sets, they ended up in MUSEUMS because nobody had seen anything like that before. It was just such a novelty.

But things changed in the early 20th century. Mahjong was a gigantic fad in the 1920s. EVERYBODY from the President of the United States down, was playing this game. As a result, workshops in Shanghai were cranking out mahjong sets every day of the week - which is saying a lot, because they were ALL made by hand. Every single tile, shelf, drawer, tile-face...carved, split, cut, sanded and dovetailed by hand. Just ONE set is a LOT of effort, so doing THOUSANDS a week is insane.

The value of mahjong sets varies ENORMOUSLY.

The ones which are worth HUGE money are the ones from the early 1900s. 1910s, 1920s, 1930s. Any set made BEFORE then is basically a unicorn - they're so rare and hard to find.

The sets are almost always made of bone tile-faces, and bamboo tile-backs, dovetailed together, carved by hand, and painted by hand.

But even among those really old antique sets from the 1900s, there's variations.

You have sets, and you have sets.

Remember, these were churned out in their THOUSANDS, so not every set was made to the same standard. Some are really cheap, shitty, knocked together and thrown into a box (literally), and others were finely handcrafted masterpieces made by expert cabinetmakers and woodworkers.

Are there sets which are worth THOUSANDS of dollars? Yes. But these are the rare, handcrafted, really highly-detailed sets. They do exist, but they're pretty rare, and cost money.

Your run-of-the-mill antique set from say 1925, goes anywhere from $200 in crappy condition, to maybe $1,000 in SPECTACULAR condition. But that depends on so many factors.

Is the box in good condition?

How detailed is it? Any engravings? Carvings? Brass/nickel hardware?

What condition is the metalwork in?

How good is the carving on the tiles?

How good is the joinery?

What's the bone-bamboo ratio? (yes, that matters!).

Does it have all the instructions and accessories, etc?

Re. bone & bamboo - the high quality sets have more bone than bamboo. A high quality set has tiles which are like 40, 50, or more percent bone, vs. bamboo. A middling-range set will have, usually, 40, 30% bone vs bamboo. A REALLY CHEAP set is like...10 or 20% bone.

Prices for mahjong sets jump around enormously because of all these factors, as you can imagine.

The prices I listed on my eBay, for example, are based on things like age, completeness, condition, and general, overall quality of the SET - condition of the case or box is often not useful since the cases or boxes, as I've mentioned before - rarely survived. That said, those prices are negotiable, so I don't necessarily expect to get those prices.

 

Great information, and isn’t this true of all antiques - the further you dig, the more you learn, and the further you can see it is possible to dig.

But I am really asking about only your set (below) that I think you said you paid $400 for (correct me if I’m wrong). As a dealer, I assume you paid that because you believed it to be a bargain. I understand you do not have it for sale and probably don’t want to sell. Thus my question of what you value that set for, knowing what you do about the market, IF you were to think about selling?

 

Yes, I paid $400 for that one. For a number of reasons.

1. It was in very good-to-excellent overall condition.
2. It had minor wear, which was easily rectified (nothing a bit of paint and a drop or two of glue wouldn't fix).
3. It was a reasonable price.

I've seen sets like these sell for between $300 - $1,000, and almost all of them are falling to pieces. Literally. The cases, the drawers, the handles...you can't pick them up without cradling them, because otherwise they'll literally fall apart in your hands.

The last one I saw of this size was about $600, $700, and it was in just such a state - so delicate you could barely touch it.

This one was in MUCH better condition, for a lower price, and it wasn't selling. Then the seller dropped the price again, and I bought it.

As for what I think THIS one is worth?

Fully restored and properly touched up, somewhere in the region of $1,000. Maybe a bit less. The issue is value-for-money, really.

As I said, I've seen sets in worse shape than this with asking prices MUCH higher than what I paid. But that doesn't meant they're worth that much. But I think this one is, because its structural integrity is much more intact.

 

Great information. Thank you.

 

That one looks like a cribbage set, not mahjong. I've been learning to play cribbage in recent years. (And I lost track of the conversation, so maybe the cribbage idea was already mentioned.)

The pegs stored inside the little door in the back, and the parallel rows of holes, are clues. I've never seen one with the rows inlaid like that, thought.