Ivory Mahjong Tiles

Antique butterscotch bakelite mah jong set 152 tiles 5 racks.

Ivory mahjong tiles.

You can see the criss cross chevron pattern known as schreger lines on the top two tiles. The ivory color is true not yellow or greenish as was a tile set i purchased from another web site. Some people do have ivory tiles but most people don t. Ending oct 8 at 12 39pm pdt 5d 5h.

This set is pure ivory. Antique mahjong bovine bone bamboo set in case plus 4 old footed wood racks. Notice the fine vertical lines created to make the tiles look like ivory which is why celluloid of this type was referred to as french ivory but the grain is too regular to be ivory. Only a few sets would have ever been made of ivory and many of these would have been made for the export market as could be seen with western indices on the tiles instead of just chinese characters and numbers.

Antique chinese mah jongg set bone bamboo wood chest case dice 1920 s. Ivory was in very short supply in china in the 1920s and china was a poor country then. People who have tiles that are a combination of a white material and bamboo often think their sets are made of ivory and bamboo but usually their sets are bone and bamboo. This is a quality set of mah jong tiles.

Deeply carved well painted and a good weight. Bone bone is by far the most common material used in antique chinese mah jongg sets and it is usually dove tailed with bamboo.