Mah Jongg Sets.

Read our Guide to discover a brief history of this wonderful game.

Pictured above is a  game set by Jaques of London

Tile games

Mah Jongg is a game for four players that originated in China around 500 B.C. Today it is played around the world both in Western and Eastern cultures. In China today the game is so ingrained within Chinese culture that major films, books and arcade games feature scenes in what is now referred to as the "Mah Jongg sub-genre"

It is a game of skill, strategy and calculation (but also involves an element of luck depending on the variation played). The object of the game is to build complete suits or 'melds' with either 13 or 16 tiles. The first person to achieve this is the winner.


Jaques' Luxury Mah Jongg

History

In 1895, Stewart Culin, an American anthropologist, wrote a paper in which mahjong was mentioned.
Shortly after this Jaques imported the first Sets for sale in the UK

This is the first known written account of mahjong in any language other than Chinese. By 1910, there were written accounts in many languages, including French and Japanese. In 1920, Abercrombie & Fitch became the first-ever American brand to introduce the game. It became a success in New York, and the owner of the company, Ezra Fitch, sent emissaries to Chinese villages to buy every set of mahjong they could find. Abercrombie & Fitch sold a total of 12,000 sets. slightly more than Jaques of London!

American mahjong, which was mainly played by Jewish women during the 1920s in America, grew from this craze. By the 1930s, many revisions of the rules developed that were substantially different from Babcock’s classical version (including some that were considered fundamentals in other variants, such as the notion of a standard hand).


Mah jong is not the first re-appearance of the Chinese game in the western world. It was also introduced by W. H. Wilkinson of H.B.M. Consular Service, and published in card form by Messrs. Goodall of London, prior to 1895, under the name of Khanhoo. This card game does not seem to have made any impression, the success of Mahjong resting in no small part upon the elegance of its mechanism as embodied in the domino-like pieces.

Jaques' Luxury Mah Jongg sets are presented in beautiful Mahogany cabinets set with solid brass fittings and include hand-engraved tiles and ebonized tile racks. Sets come complete with score sticks, wind discs and a copy of Jaques' original Rules.

To see our full collection of sets in our online shop along with our entire range of indoor games please visit Jaques' online Games store.