Vintage Chinese Mahjong Resin Game Pieces and Wood Box. Comes with two dice, four pieces marked with symbols for North, South, East, and West, and all the tiles to play the game in plastic Ziploc bags. 

Condition: Commensurate with age and use. 

Size: 4 x 3 1/4 x 6 1/2 in. 

Mahjong (also transliterated as mah jongg, mah-jongg, and mahjongg) is a tile-based game that was developed in the 19th Century in China. It is usually played by four players, and the game and its regional variants are widely played throughout East and Southeast Asia and have also become popular in Western countries since the early 20th Century. Similar to the Western card game rummy, mahjong is a game of skill, strategy, and luck. To distinguish it from mahjong solitaire, it is sometimes referred to as mahjong rummy. The game is played with a set of 144 tiles based on Chinese characters and symbols, although many regional variations may omit some tiles or add unique ones. In most variations, each player begins by receiving 13 tiles. In turn, players draw and discard tiles until they complete a legal hand using the 14th drawn tile to form four melds (or sets) and a pair (eye). A player can also win with a small class of special hands. While many variations of mahjong exist, most variations have some basic rules in common including how a piece is drawn and discarded, the use of suits (numbered tiles) and honors (winds and dragons), the basic kinds of melds allowed, how to deal the tiles and the order of play. Beyond these basic common rules, numerous regional variations exist which may have notably different criteria for legal melds and winning hands and even radically different scoring systems. A group of players may introduce their own house rules which can notably change the feel of play. Based on draw-and-discard card games that were popular in the 18th Century, it is not certain when exactly the conversion from cards to tiles took place, but the earliest surviving tile sets date to around 1870 and originated in Shanghai. The ban on gambling after the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949 led to a decline in playing, and it was outright banned during the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, but today it has become one of the favorite pastimes in China and Chinese-speaking communities around the world once again. 

Commensurate with age and use.