Featured Antique Cased Miniature Mahjong Set (ca. 1900)

How's this for fun?

2/3-size miniature antique mahjong set. A complete set of 144 bone-and-bamboo mahjong tiles inside their original four-drawer wooden carrying-case!

Sets in cases like these date back to the turn of the century (ca. 1890 - 1930), so mine will be from around there; 1900-1920ish. Most sets are one size up from this, so I'm imagining a miniature set will be fairly rare. As such I was willing to pay a little bit more for it.

The tiles are not adorned with any Western markings (numbers or letters), so this tells me it was made for the Chinese market, as opposed to being one of the sets manufactured for sale in North America, etc.



The set does not come with tallysticks, tokens or dice that most sets are "supposed" to come with (none of those are really ESSENTIAL for playing the game, they're mostly used for keeping score, which isn't vital to the game). But it DOES come with the full set of original 144 tiles. So, I'm very excited to have this.

I'm going to see if I can find a pair of miniature bone dice to toss in the box, to make it a bit more complete.

 

THAT is SO ADORABLE!!! Even tho you did NOT mention any dimensions!!!!! SOOOOOO, how small is it?????? You're makin' us drool!!!!!

 

The case measures:

H: 5.25in.
W: 5.5in.
D: 9in.

Also: Modern, plastic tile (from my mother's set), compared to one of the antique, half-sized bone ones (from my set)...

 

The contents of the drawers:

 

Nice little gem you found there! Love it.

 

@Shangas, you do manage to find the niftiest items, whether silver or not!!!!!!!!!

 

I found the blog of a really hardcore collector online. I've sent her an email to see if she can give me any information about my set!